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Transportation and Land Use in Minnesota
Fri, 24 May 2019 14:00:43 +0000 en-US
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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.1What About Traffic and Parkinghttps://streets.mn/2019/05/24/what-about-traffic-and-parking/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/24/what-about-traffic-and-parking/#commentsFri, 24 May 2019 14:00:43 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80261I think we can all mainly agree that the things that, correctly, cause us the most concern in the world are traffic and parking. Sure, there are other things that are minor issues (little things like war and human suffering), but none really give rise to the same level of existential dread as having to wonder whether your trip in a car will be slightly delayed or whether you may have to look somewhere other than immediately in front of your destination to park. Or worse, you could have to pay!

It is the acute and life-altering nature of these concerns that leads them to be the first response even the smallest of possible changes. Someone wants to build on an empty lot? Those with foresight immediately shout, “what about traffic and parking!”

With that sarcastic mini-rant out of the way, someone wants to build apartments over a grocery store down in our neck of South Minneapolis, on the 4700 block of Cedar Avenue. Neighbors have concerns. Can you guess what they might be?

Before we talk about what the proposal is, let’s first check out the current state of things:

Aerial shot of the 4700 block of Cedar Ave S., via Google Maps

Cedar Avenue is in the middle. The project site is proposed for the center of the block to the east on the right side of the image. What’s there right now? Mostly impervious, paved surface parking, but also a single story grocery store built in 1955. (The creamery and coffee to the south and the restaurant to the north are staying as is.)

Image from ESG Architects via the city (possibly mangled by me trying to get it in a usable format).

A new grocery store (the one that’s there will be closing) with 130 apartments over it. You can’t directly see it in the image, but behind where it says “Grocery” and on the level above the store is one indoor parking spot for each unit. The bit of the building on the left has enclosed and covered parking on the ground floor for the businesses .

So, about traffic. Cedar is pretty bad. Specifically on this block, traffic is also too fast, especially southbound, where drivers accelerate downhill from 46th street onto a roadway that is too wide and offers next to no side friction. We live quite near it and I hate it and mostly avoid it (unless I’m complaining about the pedestrian conditions over there) if I can.

It also has too many cars (thanks, freeway style connection to the south!). Per 2016 Hennepin County traffic counts, Cedar had annual average daily traffic of 14,200 cars just a bit to the north at 43rd and 17,300 on the south side of Lake Nokomis. 35W construction has likely upped those numbers as people use our neighborhood street as an alternate route.

So, what will this project add to the traffic count? If I heard the traffic engineer correctly at a community meeting: 75 more cars. I’d wager that if the 35W construction ever ends, it will remove more cars from Cedar than that.

What sort of witchcraft is this then? How could new neighbors not lead to loads of new traffic? Well, I’m not traffic engineer and I don’t actually have much of a clue as to how traffic studies are done, but the somewhat obvious answer is that we’re talking about 130 households who will live above a grocery store, across a parking lot from a liquor store and a pizza restaurant, next door to a creamery and a coffee shop, across the street from another coffee shop, a popcorn shop, a boutique, and (still coming soon I think) dentist, a fancy Italian restaurant, a tailor, and a gas station. In short, there’s a whole lot that people who live there will be able to get without even leaving their block. That’s how you alleviate traffic. You let people live where they don’t need to drive for things.

How about parking? Let me start with an unpopular opinion: there’s way too much parking there right now. I’d wager that the available parking in the area is literally never full. Without even contemplating the evil of parking in front of someone’s house, there’s parking on the street on both sides of Cedar, which gets only sporadic use (more cars parked on Cedar would be a great help in slowing traffic). There’s parking available on both sides of Longfellow, which almost never gets any use. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car parked on the south side of 47th Street (although Google Streetview caught some). If parking was currently an issue, the surrounding street parking would be getting a lot more use than it currently does.

It doesn’t, because, again, the block is mostly surface parking and much of it goes unused. Sure, it gets close to full on weekend evenings when the pizza place is busy, but let me use an anecdote to demonstrate what “close” means: we’ve driven there from our house 2.5 blocks away in three vehicles (six adults and two toddlers). Early evening on a Friday.

If parking was an issue, we’d have walked or consolidated vehicles. We didn’t have to. There’s way more parking than needed for the businesses and there will be plenty when this project is done too.

Oh, some neighbors are also complaining about the height of the project too. It’s 72 feet to the top of the elevator shaft, which is definitely taller than the stuff that’s immediately nearby. We will likely be able to see it from our backyard, especially in the winter when there are no leaves on the trees (we can see the Speedway sign then too).

Maybe I’m just deficient or something, because I do not get where people get their height-judging powers. I do not know what “too tall” means, unless it means that it’s blocking views, shading neighbors or, maybe, dwarfing something significant nearby. This site bounded on one side by literal open space (golf course/park/park works yard) to the east. Nothing to shade or dwarf there. It’s bounded to the north south and west by other commercial properties and their respective parking lots. Nothing to worry about there either. No one’s yard or garden will be shaded. No one’s solar panels will have their light blocked. There’s simply no reason to worry about height here.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least briefly mention climate change. We, as a society, need to drive a lot less. (Frankly, for safety and space efficiency reasons in addition to climate change too). We can’t do that if we continue with our existing patterns of land use. We need to let people live closer to stuff, so they can shop closer to home and get to work without having to drive. We need developments like this.

The big news on June 8 is the startup of the C Line BRT between downtown Minneapolis and the Brooklyn Center Transit Center (BCTC) via Penn Avenue N. It will largely replace the Route 19, which ran every 10 minutes and will continue to serve local stops with half-hourly service seven days a week. The C Line will run every 10 minutes and stop about every half mile.

Like the A Line, the C Line will feature off-board fare collection to speed boarding through all doors, large heated waiting shelters with real-time schedule displays and traffic signal priority for buses (though not at every intersection).

Some of the C Line buses are battery powered, a big experiment. The buses are charged up overnight at the garage. During the 8-12 minute layovers at the ends of the line, the bus raises an LRT-like pantograph to take electricity from an overhead power source. The battery is still depleted by the end of the day, but the short recharges extend the bus’s range. The big question is how viable the electric buses will be in cold weather, which reduces battery output. If it works as hoped, you’ll see more EB’s in the future.

Travel time savings range from 11-21 percent, depending on the direction and time of day. For example, BCTC to 6th & Nicollet currently takes 36-39 minutes on Route 19 and will be 29-32 minutes on the C Line. Expect that to get fine-tuned after some real-life operating experience.

Besides being reduced to 30-minute service, Route 19 will lose a pair of low-service branches. The 19Y to 36th & Victory Drive was a rush hour-only remnant of the old all-day Route 7 and is disappearing. The 19H left Penn at Dowling and ended at 42nd & Victory Drive via Dowling, York and 42nd Avenue. It had 30-minute rush hour and 60-minute midday service. Now Route 19 will divert southbound AM and northbound PM rush hour trips via York between Dowling and 42nd, and the rest of the 19H service will disappear.

Future Items of Note

Will the electric buses work, especially in winter?

Off-board fare collection requires transit police to do fare checks on the buses, which means a higher police presence than ever before. Given past community-police tensions, will this lead to confrontations and controversy?

Will low Route 19 ridership cause further trimming? That’s what happened to Route 16 because of the Green Line, which diverted so many passengers from the remaining local bus that the 16 was first reduced from every 20 to every 30 minutes, then shortened from 27th Ave. SE in Minneapolis to Fairview Avenue in St.Paul. The same thing happened with the A Line and the downgraded Route 84 Snelling Avenue local. The 84 was cut back from Rosedale to Midway Parkway. Will Route 19 still have enough passengers to justify running it to BCTC?

The viability of the local bus services that supplement BRT will be an issue to watch as the other arterial BRT’s are implemented.

Other June Service UpdatesBecause of low ridership, Metro Transit is cutting 15 I-35W express trips that were added on the fringes of the rush hours to offer alternatives during the freeway reconstruction. Also cut was the weekend half-hourly service on Route 535 that serves the I-35W corridor, which makes one wonder about the weekend viability of the Orange Line BRT, which will replace the 535.

Routes 4, 6, 12, 61 and 141 are on long-term detour via Nicollet Mall due to the Hennepin Avenue downtown reconstruction. It was unfortunate that the detour started in the spring but the schedules couldn’t be changed until June 8. Because the Mall is so much slower than Hennepin through downtown, the result has been late buses all day long, which can’t be good for retaining ridership. In the case of Route 6 this was compounded by additional detours in Edina and Uptown. I was on a bus the other day that was running 25 minutes late. Ouch.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/23/the-quarterly-transit-report-june-2019/feed/6Chart of the Day: CO2 Emissions Reduction Projectionshttps://streets.mn/2019/05/21/chart-of-the-day-co2-emissions-reduction-projections/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/21/chart-of-the-day-co2-emissions-reduction-projections/#commentsTue, 21 May 2019 18:25:21 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80246Here’s a lovely bit of data visualization for you, via the Information is Beautiful blog, that shows the CO2 footprint of our society and how it needs to change.

At least in the transportation and housing sector, the authors of this particular data viz chart call for the following goals and policies, to reach zero CO2 by 2050:

By 2030.

Transportation and building changes by 2050.

The plan they lay out is ambitious, and calls for quick action by 2025:

Our zero-carbon scenario requires the global elite (the 20 per cent of global citizens who account for 70 per cent of emissions) to cut the quickest and deepest. Setting aside climate justice concerns, concentrating on US citizens who average 16.4 tonnes CO2 per person, would bring us closer to zero a lot quicker than the people of Niger, who clock up under 0.1 tonne.

In the rich world in particular, zero carbon would usher in a period of huge social change. Energy would be stringently rationed, dedicated to survival and essential activities; we’d go to bed early and rise with the sun. Expect massive disruption in the way food is grown, processed and distributed – more turnips, fewer mangoes on the menu in the UK for starters. Globally, there would be much-reduced private car use, virtually no aviation, haulage or shipping – spelling a dramatic end to material globalization as we know it.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/21/chart-of-the-day-co2-emissions-reduction-projections/feed/7Map Monday: Minnesota’s Great River Roadhttps://streets.mn/2019/05/20/map-monday-minnesotas-great-river-road/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/20/map-monday-minnesotas-great-river-road/#commentsMon, 20 May 2019 17:00:17 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80238Spring is here, spring is here. Life is Skittles and life is beer.

Among the other signs of spring in Minnesota, we have both river flooding, and scenic sights along Minnesota’s Great River Road. This includes the Apple Blossoms of La Crescent, eagles, birds and other wildlife emerging for the season.

Today’s map features the Great River Road through Minnesota. This is one segment of the National Scenic Byway.

If you are tripping over the coming long weekend, or as the summer continues, consider the sights of the Great River Road along your path.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/20/map-monday-minnesotas-great-river-road/feed/3How the 2017 Ward 3 Election in Minneapolis Foreshadows Our Local Political Futurehttps://streets.mn/2019/05/20/how-the-2017-ward-3-election-in-minneapolis-foreshadows-our-local-political-future/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/20/how-the-2017-ward-3-election-in-minneapolis-foreshadows-our-local-political-future/#commentsMon, 20 May 2019 14:30:57 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79043Every Monday, I listen to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast where editors and reporters dive into the week’s news and trends through a data-driven lens.

On April 8, the group discussed Clare Malone’s fascinating feature story, “A Tale of Two Suburbs,” about how race and class is dividing cities’ political geography.

The podcast discussion focused on future political divides, including homeowner versus renter. In Minneapolis and St. Paul, we see this divide every week: at neighborhood meetings, at zoning and planning meetings, and on the local campaign trail.

Malone’s FiveThirtyEight story describes how the history along both sides of the Cuyahoga River helped to determine current politics in Cleveland. This reminded me of my local Ward 3 in Minneapolis, which is bisected by the Mississippi River — and saw very different politics in the 2017 election on the west side, Downtown, versus the east side, including Northeast and Southeast.

To understand how each candidate campaigned in 2017, it helps to start with the cultural geography of Ward 3.

Taking a walk through today and yesterday

Starting in the 1st Precinct, on the east bank, to the east of I-35W, many student renters are squeezed between student loans and high rent. Moving northwest along the river, the historic neighborhood of Marcy-Holmes has many homeowners who are frustrated with landlords who don’t keep up their properties. Tension exists in the Southeast area among homeowners, landlords and renters. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Marcy-Holmes is $890 per month, according to Rentometer.

High-rises, beer signs, church steeples and bridges: the Nicollet Island-East Bank neighborhood, south end of “Nordeast.” Photo: Author

The 3rd Precinct, which includes Nicollet Island and the Central-Hennepin (CenHen) area, has seen significant new construction of rental apartments, with more being completed after the 2017 election. Historic, luxury homes sit on Park Board land on Nicollet Island. On the east bank are high-rise condos next to low-rise townhomes. One high-rise, The Falls and Pinnacle, built in 1983, has 257 units, and has units for sale ranging from $165,000 for a studio to $400,000 for a three-bedroom. The condo association’s website boasts that residents can “experience ‘Nordeast’ Minneapolis.”

The moniker “Nordeast” refers to the cultural history of the area around the turn of the 20th century, when northern and eastern European immigrants influenced the culture of the area. Some of that remains, in the names of places, the churches, and the delis and restaurants.

In the Nicollet Island-East Bank neighborhood, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,626 per month, according to Rentometer.

My own great-grandfather was one of those immigrants. He served in the last days of the Great War. He put down roots in Northeast and ran a distillery in his attic during prohibition. My grandfather, at grade-school age, operated the still and periodically “tested quality.” The Minneapolis police busted my great-grandfather, but with the help of business connections to a politician-lawyer, he was freed the same day.

That moniker of “Nordeast” can be exclusionary, however. In my time door-knocking the neighborhood for candidates, some residents told me they appreciate the community being homogeneous, or white. Some in the 5th and 6th Precincts in Northeast said they wished the Lowry Avenue Bridge to North Minneapolis would stay closed, as it was at that time for renovation.

On the west side of the river, in Downtown, Interstate 94 wraps the neighborhoods in a concrete river, creating an island divided from the neighborhoods on the other sides of the freeway. Downtown has benefited from most of the development dollars invested in the city over the last several years, and new luxury apartments or condos are coming online every few months. The neighborhood associations for the most part have welcomed the new mid-rise and high-rise buildings, although some have griped recently about how one new building on a strip by the Mills Fleet Farm parking garage by U.S. Bank Stadium will block their view of the Downtown skyline.

The rapid pace of development has created an alliance between long-term renters and condo-owners. As long as the development boom continues, rent increases have stayed low — and more retail and dining is opening up. In Downtown East, within an area known as the Mill District, is a new Trader Joe’s, whose private-label staples are cheaper than the Hennepin Avenue Whole Foods or the Lunds & Byerlys across the river in CenHen. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Downtown East is $2,103, according to Rentometer.

On the other side of Hennepin is the North Loop. Different mapping programs label areas differently, but for me the heart of the North Loop are three streets: North First Street, North Second Street and Washington Avenue North from Hennepin Avenue to Plymouth Avenue North. The area is known for its warehouses that have been converted to luxury rentals and condos. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,750, according to Rentometer.

The candidates in 2017

Four major candidates ran for City Council in Minneapolis Ward 3 in 2017: Tim Bildsoe (DFL, not endorsed), Steve Fletcher (DFL, endorsed, who ultimately was elected), Ginger Jentzen (Socialist-Alternative) and Samantha Pree-Stinson (Green). All four had unique bases of support along issue and class lines.

Ginger Jentzen (Socialist-Alternative)

Ginger Jentzen was executive director of the $15 Now group that pushed Minneapolis to adopt a $15 minimum wage. Her well-designed website had a checkbox filled on that issue. Unchecked were policy goals of rent control, inclusionary zoning to build more affordable housing, and taxing the rich to fund mass transit and education. Jentzen went to the heart of the class divide in Ward 3, saying in one of her policy planks that, “from rent hikes to unjust foreclosures, working people and young people are being priced out, while new luxury apartments and condos are affordable only to a few.”

Jentzen’s policy prescription to the challenge of high rents included lobbying the state legislature to end preemption against local rent control ordinances, “linkage fees” that operate similar to park dedication fees, but for affordable housing, and building new public housing funded locally by taxes on private developers.

While Jentzen’s campaign positioned itself as a resistance against the Trump administration and its policies, the messaging of the campaign did react to similar sentiments among its base. Jentzen, not unlike Trump, refused to take political contributions from “corporate executives and big developers”, pledging that she was “not for sale,” and also pledged to donate a portion of her council member salary to “building social movements.” Trump also promised to donate his entire salary to charity, and so far has kept that promise.

Jentzen spoke to the struggles of the renter class. Her base of support included University of Minnesota students and those feeling priced out by increasing rents on the east side of the river. In the end, she earned the most first-choice votes, but the precincts where she had pluralities were all on the east side of the river, including “Nordeast,” East Bank and Marcy-Holmes. Her best precinct was closest to the University.

In the November election, Jentzen earned 33.3 percent of first-choice votes but lost the election because Fletcher earned significantly more second- and third-choice votes through the ranked choice process.

Steve Fletcher (DFL, endorsed)

Steve Fletcher started his career in technology and community organizing. After a career in technology services, he was executive director of Minnesota 2020, a “progressive, new media, non-partisan think tank” where he wrote against Teach For America and in favor for initiatives that advanced public school teachers from within, such as Illinois’ “Grow Your Own” program. He was also a research consultant for the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.

In 2010, Fletcher was the founding executive director of MN Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC) and became most well known locally for this work. NOC’s work started in South Minneapolis after the closure of ACORN, but after the 2011 tornado in North Minneapolis, the organization expanded into new neighborhoods.

In 2017, Fletcher ran on a DFL base platform. On affordable housing, he supported increased density of market-rate development, inclusionary zoning to build more affordable units and protecting naturally occurring affordable housing. Unlike Jentzen, he was not in favor of rent control. On transportation, he was in favor of moving the city toward a more “car-free” culture with transportation options that made living without a vehicle possible.

Candidate tweet from the May 6 DFL convention.

On May 6, 2017, Fletcher won the DFL endorsement after the second candidate seeking endorsement, Cordelia Pierson, withdrew and endorsed Fletcher after the first round of voting at the convention. After the DFL endorsement, Fletcher secured more endorsements from DFL- and union-connected groups, boasting 15 organization and media endorsements in the end. (Disclosure: I was the chair of credentials at the convention, but did not endorse a candidate.)

Fletcher threaded the needle between supporting development and supporting affordable housing and renters’ rights. In the November election, he drew support with both first- and second-choice votes from across the ward. Even though he was not first in first-choice votes, through the process of ranked choice, he won the election for City Council.

In the November election, Fletcher earned 27.4 percent of first-choice votes, and won the election with second- and third-choice votes through the ranked choice process.

Tim Bildsoe (DFL, not endorsed). Photo: Candidate website.

Tim Bildsoe (DFL, not endorsed)

Tim Bildsoe entered the race for City Council on August 15, 2017. He was president of the North Loop neighborhood association, a neighborhood of Ward 3 that had seen significant new development. Before moving to Minneapolis, he served 16 years on the Plymouth City Council, first representing the 1st Ward and later as an at-large council member in the suburb of nearly 80,000.

Entering the race in August after the caucus and endorsement process was complete, Bildsoe earned no endorsements from DFL- or union-connected groups, but he did gain support from real estate and developer interests. As president of a neighborhood association, Bildsoe was highly tuned to the needs of homeowners in the North Loop and Downtown. In the November election, he would earn the third-most first-choice votes, but earn the plurality of such votes for all precincts but one on the west side of the Mississippi River.

Bildsoe appeared on the November ballot as a DFL candidate. In the homeowner versus renter divide, he was firmly on the side of homeowners with a pro-development, “neighborhood advocate” platform.

In the November election, Bildsoe earned 25.8 percent of first-choice votes and was the second major candidate to be eliminated in the ranked-choice process.

Samantha Pree-Stinson (Green, endorsed)

Samantha Pree-Stinson began the campaign as a DFL candidate but later received the Green Party endorsement and appeared on the ballot as a Green candidate. She was an educator and associate director of education for Corinthian Colleges and served in Afghanistan as a combat medic sergeant. Her top issues were political reform and education, tying into her past career at Corinthian.

In the November election, Pree-Stinson earned 10.2 percent of first-choice votes and was the first major candidate to be eliminated in the ranked-choice process.

In 2017, the political geography of the 3rd Ward was bisected by the Mississippi River.

Visualizing the results

Three candidates won pluralities in Ward 3 precincts: Jentzen, Fletcher and Bildsoe. If the election were held as plurality vote (winner-take-all), or something similar to the national electoral college, Jentzen would be council member today. But since 2009, Minneapolis elections have had a ranked-choice process where voters select first, second and third choices, and their one vote is allocated in a process of elimination to preferred candidates with the most votes.

Where this ranked-choice process led was determined in large measure by what the second choices of candidates’ supporters were. After the elimination of write-in first-choices, the candidate with the least number of votes was Pree-Stinson. Check out all the data here, including a record of all votes with ranked choices. Over 38 percent of her voters chose Fletcher as their second choice, and nearly 30 percent chose Jentzen. When Pree-Stinson was eliminated, 389 votes moved to Fletcher and 298 votes moved to Jentzen.

The second and last major candidate to be eliminated was Tim Bildsoe because he had the least number of votes after the first rounds of elimination. Over 59 percent of Bildsoe’s supporters had Fletcher as their second choice, and only 7 percent had Jentzen as their second choice. When Bildsoe was eliminated, 1,508 votes moved to Fletcher, but only 181 moved to Jentzen. Note that 8.7 percent of Bildsoe first-choice voters had Pree-Stinson as second choice. With Pree-Stinson eliminated earlier, those votes moved to the third choice. Of the people who chose Bildsoe first and Pree-Stinson second, an additional 131 votes went to Fletcher and 32 votes went to Jentzen. Check out all the data here.

When all the votes were processed and tallied, those second- and third-choice votes won the 2017 election for Fletcher. When the first-choices were first tallied, Fletcher was in second place, behind Jentzen by 585 votes. After Pree-Stinson and Bildsoe were eliminated and second- and third-choice votes were moved to Fletcher and Jentzen, Fletcher was in first place, ahead of Jentzen by 1,017 votes. Check out all the data here.

Lessons for the future

The homeowner versus renter divide is becoming a strong current in urban politics. From Twitter accounts like Wedge LIVE, to community groups like Sustain Ward 3 (St. Paul) and Neighbors for More Neighbors, organizers are responding to community demand on issues facing renters. We have also seen homeowners take up arms, often by fighting back against transit construction or zoning changes, to prevent projects that could benefit renters and depress property values.

In the future, we should not be surprised to see more candidates like Jentzen across the cities. But we should also not be surprised when second- or third-ranking candidates win in ranked-choice elections. In winner-take-all elections, however, we could very well have more Socialist Alternative or other third-party candidates win in urban districts for state representative or state senate a larger number of major candidates are in the race.

What do you see in the nature of your local politics? Has ranked choice led to upset wins in your area? What elections system would you prefer? Share your observations and opinions in the comments.

Every Sunday here at streets.mn our longtime member and Board Secretary, Betsey Buckheit, has been cleverly summarizing the week’s posts. I’m filling in for her this week, and have categorized posts according to the core values of streets.mn: people-centered, future-oriented, justice-driven, and delight-cultivating. Of course, many of our posts fit into multiple categories, or might require categories of their own (like events!). It’s an experiment!

People-Centered

Grieving the Life We Trade Away for DrivingbyKyle Constalie features some of life’s most fundamental pleasures, like smelling the blooming lilac trees or watching some cuddling possums. He explores how much of life we miss while we’re driving a car, concluding that we should make more space for people and animals, not cars: “A more alive, more community-minded form of traffic actually deserves the right of way.”

Justice-Driven

Plans for a long-term closure of a critical safe bike/pedestrian route between Minneapolis and Hopkins are examined by Christa Moseng in Share The Pain: SWLRT Related Trail Closure, where she proposes that part of Excelsior Boulevard should be used as a protected bikeway for the duration of the closure. There’s no reason the full brunt of this construction-related impact should fall on the most vulnerable road users: “Causing car drivers to share some of the pain could also motivate project planners to value more highly the burdens being placed on cyclists and other trail users for this planned closure.”

On Thursday, the Minneapolis Planning Commission was supportive of a proposed ordinance from Council President Lisa Bender that would prohibit new drive-throughs for banks, drugstores, and fast food restaurants (or any other “facility which accommodates automobiles and from which the occupants of the automobiles may make purchases or transact business”).

It’s important to emphasize: if you like your current drive-through options, you can keep them — this would only apply to new construction.

At Thursday’s meeting, Minneapolis city planner Mei-Ling Smith pointed to the fact that currently only 6 of 23 Minneapolis zoning districts allow new drive-throughs. Four commissioners spoke in support of the change, none against. The commission will vote on the ban at their next meeting, and will ultimately need to be approved by the City Council.

Commissioner Matt Brown said the issue sounds more controversial than it should be, because the city doesn’t actually build very many new drive-throughs. And when they are built, people in the area aren’t excited about them.

Commissioner Alissa Luepke-Pier said the change was more about the future than today: “This sounds dramatic but I doubt people will notice a difference in the streetscape for the next 20 years.”

Rockwell, who is the city’s most prominent foe of drive-through banking, said in 2015 it’d be no big loss for drive-through fans if Wells Fargo didn’t build another one in Uptown (in the end, they did build it):

“We’ve got a Wells Fargo with many, many drive-through lanes about a mile away at, incidentally another very high-frequency transit intersection, right by Nicollet and Lake Street. So those desperate for a drive-through can scoot up Lake Street a little bit.”

According to the planning department staff report: “While a prohibition on new drive-through facilities can be supported using existing comprehensive plan policies, pending policies provide an even more explicit basis for adopting such a regulation.”

The soon-to-be official Minneapolis 2040 comprehensive plan includes language “prohibiting the establishment of new drive-throughs and gas stations.”

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/17/drive-through-ban-gets-positive-reception-at-minneapolis-planning-commission/feed/12National Links: Ways to Experience a Cityhttps://streets.mn/2019/05/17/national-links-ways-to-experience-a-city/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/17/national-links-ways-to-experience-a-city/#respondFri, 17 May 2019 16:30:44 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80180Every day at The Overhead Wire we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the DC region. They are national links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

Did Denver Ban Single-Family Housing: Last month, Denver approved Blueprint Denver, a 300-page document detailing future guidance on land use policy. Vincent Carroll of The Denver Post notes that the document is transparent in its quest to curtail single-family neighborhoods with missing middle and infill housing. In “suburban” and “urban edge” neighborhood, it calls for accessory dwelling units and compatible two-unit uses. While the need to increase housing supply across the city is urgent, residents fear the plan could “homogenize” distinct neighborhoods, potentially sparking early development clashes. (Vincent Carroll | Denver Post)

Bike Lanes Need More Than Paint: Several weeks ago, bike advocates nationwide placed red cups that cities demarcated as “bike lanes” but were still generally dangerous for bicyclists. The cups were often smashed or crushed. A recent study found that drivers pass cyclists about 1.25 feet closer when in painted bike lanes than on streets with no bike infrastructure. However, cities are taking steps to building physical barriers between bicyclists and motor vehicles. Cambridge, MA, recently passed a law requiring all streets under construction to add protected bike lanes. In New York and Washington, D.C., similar legislation was introduced this week. (Alissa Walker | Curbed)

5 Ways to Experience Cities Differently: Rob Walker offers ways to engage with the subtleties and nuances of the urban environment. One is to look for ghosts and ruins. “Why hasn’t someone torn that old payphone and hauled it away?” Another is to “get there the hard way.” Walker suggests to go against Google maps and make getting lost an explicit goal. And while you are lost, eat somewhere you usually would not; even without Yelp reviews, Walker suggests taking in a new restaurant atmosphere. His full list of five small yet effective activities aims to help urban travelers fully immerse themselves in cities. Especially in a time where city folk are constantly distracted by their electronic devices, Walker’s suggestions assist in remaining mindful and present in cities. (Rob Walker | The Guardian)

Silicon Valley’s Own Hudson Yards: The developer of New York’s Hudson Yards is looking to build another massive mixed-use complex in Santa Clara, California. The development was actually first announced six years ago but just now got through the review process. When fully built, the project will have 5.4 million square feet of office, 700 hotel rooms, more than 1,600 apartments, and a retail, dining and entertainment district. Along with a 30-acre park, the development is a short distance from public transit and an industrial area being converted into 4,500 housing units. The development is set to open in 2023. (Noah Buhayar | Bloomberg)

Fukuoka, Japan’s Most Innovative City: Fukuoka, long dominated by mega-conglomerates and the unavoidable pull of Tokyo, wants to become Japan’s equivalent to Silicon Valley. Fukuoka is hoping that its image as a compact affordable city will be the force that attracts a young, talented, and educated workforce. In 2014, Japan’s central government approved Mayor Takashima’s request to designate Fukuoka as a “national strategic special zone” for startups, allowing them to cut corporate taxes for new businesses and create a special visa for foreign entrepreneurs. The city is also a site of a new 124-acre smart city and has been rated one of Japan’s most livable cities. (Edd Gent | BBC Future Now)

Quote of the Week

“Even with a decent salary, decent credit, still my options were limited by income. So that got me to thinking: If this is a struggle for me, what is it like for those who are making a little bit over minimum wage, or even those people who are making a decent salary, something like $35,000 to $40,000? The salaries are not keeping up with the rents.”

Ashley Allen in Texas Monthly talking about her struggle finding housing in Houston.

On this week’s podcast, we share a panel from the Shared Mobility Summit in Chicago featuring MassDOT’s Stephanie Pollack, Randy Clarke of Capital Metro, and Sadhu Johnston of Vancouver.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/17/national-links-ways-to-experience-a-city/feed/0Walking All the Streets of East-Central Linden Hillshttps://streets.mn/2019/05/17/walking-all-the-streets-of-east-central-linden-hills/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/17/walking-all-the-streets-of-east-central-linden-hills/#commentsFri, 17 May 2019 15:00:19 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79567Many of Linden Hills’ most familiar sights lie close to Lake Harriet and roughly between 39th and 43rd Streets. Certainly that’s true for me as a resident of this area, but it applies even to outsiders who come for the recreational and shopping opportunities. Familiar or not, I was glad to spend a beautiful morning winding an 8.3-mile path through this area in the brief interlude before snow returned. (Photos from the earlier walk through the northern portion of the neighborhood show enough snow for one neighborhood.)

As usual, the route consisted of a main loop (shown in blue) supplemented by spurs (shown in red). The starting and ending point (A and B) for the main loop was the intersection of 43rd Street West and Sheridan and Upton Avenues South. The northwest corner of that intersection houses a 2016 building named “Linden43” with 29 apartments in its upper three stories and commercial space on the ground floor. On the southwest corner is New Gild Jewelers in a 1914 building with second-floor apartments and then, proceeding west on 43rd Street, Zumbro Cafe, Rose Street Patisserie (recessed out of sight), and Settergren Hardware.

The far side of those former houses is Vincent Avenue, where I turned north. First, though, I temporarily continued into the 2900 block of 43rd Street West. That forward-and-back spur brought me past the Linden Hills Library, a 1931 Tudor-revival gem recognized as a historic landmark.

Linden Hills Library, 2900 43rd St. W.

Because the prior episode of this series focused so heavily on single-family dwellings and duplexes, I planned to generally skip over those without note this time, even though some are just as striking as their northern peers. However, I already made my first three exceptions in the 4100 block of Vincent Avenue South.

Two homeowners on the eastern side of that block seemed particularly solicitous toward my experience as a sidewalk dweller. One colorfully painted their garage door and staircase retaining wall, while the other positioned a bench so as to blur the usual dichotomy between private and public space.

Paintings at 4137 Vincent Ave. S.

Bench at 4105 Vincent Ave. S.

Meanwhile on the western side of that same block, an extra house is tucked behind the corner duplex on higher ground with only a narrow driveway to connect it to Vincent Avenue. This unusual situation is best appreciated with the aid of the plat map and an aerial view.

Upon returning to the 40th Street discontinuity, I jogged ever so slightly westward to continue south on Upton. First, though, I walked an eastward spur to Sheridan, which brought me past another of the area’s historic landmarks, the Chadwick Cottages, a pair of 1902 cottages joined in 1972 to form a larger house.

Chadwick Cottages, 2617 40th St. W.

The 4000 block of Upton has a noteworthy little library, adorned by the contrasting combination of a relief-carved door and the surface decorations on the side panels and scallop-edged gable fascia. A plaque dedicates it “in loving memory of Dean Emanuel, self-taught American historian, astronomer, and candy connoisseur.”

Little Library in Memory of Dean Emanuel, 4041 Upton Ave. S.

Crossing 42nd Street, the southwest corner is occupied by the Linden Hills United Church of Christ while the southeast corner has the Linden Green cluster of 15 townhouses. These townhouses occupy the broad end of the wedge formed by Upton and Sheridan Avenues. Closer to the narrower end is The Lindens, a 17-unit condo building. A concrete nameplate inscribed “Lake Harriet” memorializes the school that previously occupied the wedge.

Turning the hairpin onto northbound Sheridan Avenue, I was confronted by other multi-unit housing that bracketed The Lindens in age. A 35-unit apartment building from 1961 is just visible at the right of the photo, whereas the main focus is a three-unit condo building from 2014.

4255 Sheridan Ave. S.

The intersection of 42nd Street West with Sheridan Avenue South is bifurcated, with the westbound portion a few hundred feet further south than the portion that leads east to the lake. My main loop turned west, but first I continued on to the eastbound intersection, where I saw St. John’s Episcopal Church, a 1916 gothic structure of Platteville limestone with a southern wing added in 2006–2007.

St. John‘s’ Episcopal Church, 4201 Sheridan Ave. S.

Crossing back over Upton Avenue on 42nd Street, I encountered a tree on the northwest corner who introduced herself as Mabel. This was early enough in the day that I hadn’t had anything stronger than water to drink, and in any case, I’ve got the photo to prove it.

Third Church of Christ, Scientist, 4147 Xerxes Ave. S. (on 42nd St. W.)

Continuing across Xerxes, the south side of 42nd Street is occupied by Linden Hills Park, which I’d see more of later. For now, I walked just the first half of its northern border and turned north on York Avenue. This 4100 block of York was the first of three discontiguous blocks that my route took me through in a curlycue fashion. Its highlight was another little library, this one decorated with typographic reliefs on the side panels. Most of the letterforms appear to have been included simply as part of a visual composition, but one word on the south side stands out, despite its limited height, as a clear commandment: “READ.” (The north side has a word embedded in its cloud of letters too, literally: “WORD.”)

Little Free Library, 4100 Block of York Ave. S.

The next of the three Xerxes/York loops, the 4300 block, had even more to see. I came away with no fewer than five photos, the majority of them from the block of 44th Street that intervenes between Xerxes and York.

And finally, once I had wrapped around to 43rd Street, I walked along the eastern half of Linden Hills Park’s southern border, which includes the Linden Hills Recreation Center.

Linden Hills Recreation Center, 3100 43rd St. W. (1972)

Turning north on Washburn Avenue, I took note of a “Love is All You Need” pole in the 4200 block and a decorated house in the 4000 block.

“Love is All You Need,” 4200 Block of Washburn Ave. S.

4011 Washburn Ave. S. (1968)

Some more looping around brought me back to the intersection of Xerxes Avenue and 41st Street, from which I headed east initially to Sheridan Avenue, then past St. John’s on 42nd to the lake. The point where 42nd Street reaches Lake Harriet is a focal point for recreational facilities, including the station house serving a restored section of the Como-Harriet Streetcar Line as well as a fairy-tale-like bandshell with a windowed backdrop dramatically revealing the lake beyond. Neither was in use at the time of my walk, but from past experience I can heartily recommend both.

Linden Hills Station, Como-Harriet Streetcar Line

Lake Harriet Bandshell

Proceeding north from the bandshell area, I took William Berry Parkway initially as far as Queen Avenue before returning to the Lake Harriet Parkway. One highlight of this spur was passing over the restored trolley line adjacent to the now-unused Cottage-City Station.

Cottage-City Station, Como-Harriet Streetcar Line

Once I backtracked and took the hairpin turn onto southbound Lake Harriet Parkway, I passed near an elaborate play structure. If I had a child as an excuse, I would have loved to climb on it. However, my attention was diverted to something much smaller, though closer to the road. A little sapling of a tree has a paper tag tied to one of its branches. Closer inspection showed a floral design and the intriguingly cryptic words “Mi-Tienes Ref. 343 – Pearl.” Imagine my disappointment upon using Google to decode that as simply the particular brand of art paper and its color. So there’s no cryptic message in words or numbers, but in a way, that means the tag is even more cryptic. All it has is the floral design. Why did someone fabricate this tag and hang it on this sapling?

Intriguing Tag at Lake Harriet Park

I continued south on the parkway to 44th Street, where another hairpin turn allowed me to head back north to the intersection of Queen Avenue and Linden Hills Boulevard. That’s the point where a bridge spans the trolley right-of-way, though the restored line doesn’t actually pass under it—it ends at a car-barn there. On the trolley-free side, the former right-of-way is now an alley and parking area, adjacent to which is a red Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) that has received press attention and an award for its architect, Christopher Strom.

Accessory Dwelling Unit at 4320 West Lake Harriet Parkway

After crossing the bridge, my main loop turned right onto northbound Queen Avenue. (Northbound for me as a pedestrian, that is. For cars, it is one-way the other direction.) First, though, I walked a spur of Linden Hills Boulevard as far as 43rd Street. The photo shows the view once I had done my about-face turn, with the bridge and lake in the background. In front of that is a 1912 apartment building known as “The Dacotah” and a 1929 apartment building known as “home.” Which explains why my Less Pedestrian Half came out to join me for a bit of the walk. Although the two buildings are structurally quite different, each has 14 units.

Being Joined at 4306 Linden Hills Blvd. with The Dacotah in Background at 4312

Many of the houses along Queen Avenue are rather large, but it was the two smallest ones that drew my attention: the two birdhouses flanking a driveway.

Southern Birdhouse, 4268 Queen Ave. S.

Northern Birdhouse, 4268 Queen Ave. S.

Once I reached the northern of the two intersections of Queen Avenue and Linden Hills Boulevard, I could have simply done a hairpin turn and returned back south on the Boulevard. However, that would have have ignored the streets surrounding William Berry Woods, so I had some looping around to do, plus an extra spur on Richfield Road. As always, the extra walking yielded dividends. For instance, there’s a 1906 example of the comparatively rare Swiss chalet style at the northwest corner of Richfield Road and 40th Street, and there’s the woods themselves, with their diagonal pathway.

2504 40th St. W.

Diagonal Path, William Berry Woods

After returning south on Linden Hills Boulevard, I just needed to round the bend on 43rd Street to be back to my starting point. That last little bit of 43rd Street is rich with commerce. Fittingly, one of the buildings was originally (in 1911) the “Lake Harriet Commercial Club.” Not being a clubman, had I lived at the time my greatest interest would have been in the public library branch that occupied space on the ground floor for the 20-year period preceding construction of the dedicated Tudor-revival building. The connection to books has meanwhile returned, thanks to the prize-winning Wild Rumpus Books. I don’t care whether you have kids or not: you need to go shop there. Be sure to look around at the physical space, which grows no less magical after you pass through either the child-sized purple door or the larger black door within which it is cleverly hung.

Next up is another commercial building, this one from 1915 and accented by some lovely terra cotta trim. The brown awnings shade the Tilia restaurant, a regular haunt where I stopped for one of the famous fish taco tortas. The smaller green-awning portion of the ground floor is Coffee & Tea Ltd. and the upstairs is another architectural firm, Rehkamp Larson. Finally, the lighter-colored building at the corner has Linden Hills Dentistry and Root Salon. It was the perfect place for my walk to end, as I was coincidentally due for dental prophylaxis that afternoon.

2726 43rd St. W. with 4289 Sheridan Ave. S. in Background

Editor’s Note: Max Hailperin is walking each of Minneapolis’ 87 neighborhoods, in alphabetical order. He chronicles his adventures at allofminneapolis.com, where the original version of this article was published April 16, 2019. We’re sharing them here at streets.mn.

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https://streets.mn/2019/05/17/walking-all-the-streets-of-east-central-linden-hills/feed/7streets.mn Happy Hour at La Doña, May 28thhttps://streets.mn/2019/05/16/streets-mn-happy-hour-at-la-dona/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/16/streets-mn-happy-hour-at-la-dona/#respondThu, 16 May 2019 19:00:44 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80163If Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer, come join us for our first summertime streets.mn Happy Hour of 2019! Fortunately, it looks like the weather will be kinder to us this time around. (Those of you who could make it through almost a foot of snow to attend Happy Hour in February, you are our heroes!)

We’ll meet at La Doña Cerceveria in Minneapolis, beginning at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, May 28. Located in the Harrison neighborhood, it can be a bit tricky to find the beer among the area’s big warehouses and even bigger parking lots, so watch for La Doña’s outdoor fútbol pitches. We’ll stick around til at least 7:30, so swing by whenever works for you.

La Doña stakes claim to being the nation’s first Latino-influenced for-benefit beer company. They’re big on soccer, and they have some excellent beer plus some non-alcoholic selections as well. The night we’ll be there, a food truck and a yoga-beer event will also be taking place. We aren’t affiliated with the yoga, but feel free to bring your mat – though your fellow yogis may not be as interested to hear your thoughts on the Green Line extension or parking minimums as we are.

Mark your calendars, and see you soon!

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/16/streets-mn-happy-hour-at-la-dona/feed/0streets.mn Greenway Clean-up Follow-Uphttps://streets.mn/2019/05/16/streets-mn-greenway-clean-up-follow-up/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/16/streets-mn-greenway-clean-up-follow-up/#commentsThu, 16 May 2019 17:00:58 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80032Last weekend, a group of us from streets.mn gathered to clean up the Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis. We lucked out with gorgeous weather (65 and sunny!), and a good turnout despite many other events going on in the Twin Cities that day. A huge thank you to everyone who came out!

We met near the Urban Ventures farm at 4th Ave S and the Greenway. The surrounding area is heavily under construction these days, requiring some strategy for how to reach the location. All part of the adventure!

Adding to the fun was an optional scavenger hunt, which challenged us to find all types of garbage – cans and bottles, bike parts, even a spork.

We had a nice time chatting while we moved along the Greenway, swapping stories when we found something especially interesting or unusual. Plenty of bikers passing by called out to us, “thanks!” Unfortunately, we had our work cut out for us – there is a LOT of trash out there!

Midtown Greenway Coalition generously provided supplies for our group including 12 large garbage bags. By the time we finished, all the bags were full! All in all, we collected roughly 200 pounds of garbage.

After our hard work, we headed up to the Midtown Global Market to enjoy some conversation, food, and beverages at Eastlake Craft Brewery.

Thanks again to everyone who joined us, and to the Midtown Greenway Coalition! Next time you’re on the Greenway, keep a close eye and see if you can spot where we cleaned up.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/16/streets-mn-greenway-clean-up-follow-up/feed/1Predictions on the Future of Mobilityhttps://streets.mn/2019/05/16/predictions-on-the-future-of-mobility/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/16/predictions-on-the-future-of-mobility/#commentsThu, 16 May 2019 15:00:47 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80072

Transportation modes mapped on a log scale from 0.1 miles (about one block) to 10,000 miles (Los Angeles to Zanzibar, Tanzania).

First, I started with some predictions of what the future may look like.

The future will be electric.

The future will minimize human labor costs.

The future will be won by those who have to raise the least capital.

Let’s explore these in more detail.

Tesla Model Y. Photo: Tesla

The Future will be Electric

Remember when GM CEO Rick Wagoner told 60 Minutes that the company was investing $1 billion into hydrogen fuel cell technology? Now GM’s revenue is about one-fifth of what it was in 2003. The hydrogen bet didn’t play out and now Tesla is valued at 78.8% of what GM is even though it rolls out a fraction of the new vehicles. This prediction really ties into the third prediction because in 2019, creating a product that runs on electricity requires very little capital investment. Every home has 110-volt outlets, and adding a 220-volt to the garage requires just a trip from an electrician and some equipment. The grid of power lines, generating stations, human capital, and intellectual know-how is already all there. With hydrogen, it wasn’t on all counts, and that’s why the bet failed.

Looking to the future, what if Nice Ride stations rented power via the city’s streetlights and other street electrical infrastructure and were able to charge electric bikes in docks?

Become a “Juicer”, and be prepared to be juiced. Webpage: Lime

The Future will Minimize Human Labor Costs

Right now, electric scooter-share companies like Lime, Bird, Lyft, Jump (Uber), and Spin (Ford) hire meagerly-paid independent contractors to charge batteries for their fleets of scooters and place them in prime real estate to make real dollars the next day.

Human labor is expensive, especially with minimum wages that operators are fighting against every day. With a tight labor market, there are increasingly other, better paid, opportunities out there. What is a transportation network operator to do?

The Future will be Won by Those Who Have to Raise the Least Capital

The future will be won by start-ups that don’t need to make huge capital investments to get off the ground and fly. Websites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter started small, got some servers, and grew fast. Uber never had to buy fleets of cars, it just handed out refurbished phones to drivers, then switched to an app on driver phones. Drivers provided the huge fleet of cars.

Would you like to rent a scooter for the cost of a phone plan? Would you like to be a Uber landlord and covert your garage into an autonomous ride charging station? Share your dreams and nightmares on the future of mobility in the comments.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/16/predictions-on-the-future-of-mobility/feed/8Bike to Work Day is Coming!https://streets.mn/2019/05/15/bike-to-work-day-is-coming/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/15/bike-to-work-day-is-coming/#commentsWed, 15 May 2019 19:00:39 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80158

It is Bike to Work Day in the Twin Cities on Friday! Perhaps you are biking to work. Maybe you will see all those joyous cyclists and think, “I would like to try that!”

We have content that can help! streets.mn writers have written more than once about bike commuting. Whether it’s your first bike commute or your 750th, here are some great articles for you!

Electric Assist Bicycles — You know what makes the commute even easier? Investing in an e-bike. Maybe this isn’t the first step, but as you get deeper in, you may start thinking about it. While pricey, they are cheaper than a car!

Keep us up to date about your bike commute or Bike to Work Day experience in the comments, or Tweet at us with pictures and big thoughts (@streetsmn). And remember: May is actually Bike to Work MONTH!

As part of the SWLRT construction, the Cedar Lake Trail is now closed between Hopkins and Minneapolis. For two to three years.

Never fear, there is a detour. Let’s take a look at it.

Official SWLRT Trail closure and detour map

These detours certainly get a cyclist from one side of the closure to the other. The portion I’m focused on—between Hopkins and France Avenue along Minnetonka Boulevard—is 5.8 miles. The closed portion of trail is 3.6 miles. The detour is 2.2 miles longer—60%. An 18 minute trip will now take 30 minutes, and that’s assuming your goal was simply to pass through from one end of the closure to the other.

I would note that there are some aspects of the detour that are unclear on the SWLRT official map. For example: it’s not clear how riders will get from this point along Toledo Avenue South onto Minnetonka Boulevard.

SWLRT Detour at Toledo Ave. and Minnetonka Blvd.

Will trail users be provided more than wayfinding signs to navigate this smoothly and safely? Especially since the portion of Minnetonka Boulevard east of Lake Street in that image are not designated to be bikeways (West of that point, in satellite images the “designated bike lanes” identified by the SWLRT map appear to be shoulders.)

Moreover, people use the Cedar Lake Trail for more than passing through. As someone who has relied on the Cedar Lake Trail as a transportation corridor to go to a point between the two end points of this closure and south of the trail this alternative route is even worse than that.

I need to get here:

The Official Cedar Lake Trail detour, and where a trail user might want to go.

A point just 0.5 miles south of the trail, and 2.8 miles from the Minneapolis side of the closure. Entertaining briefly the idea that I would take the detour and then bike back to my destination up Excelsior Boulevard, my detour would be 7 miles, for what is ordinarily a 2.8 mile route segment. I’m not going to use it. It isn’t a real alternative. (And if you’re looking at whether I should turn south off Minnetonka Blvd. on Louisiana Ave., Louisiana Ave. is not a designated bike route.)

The planned detour smacks of a “solution” that does the bare minimum (putting up detour signs) for one specific use case (going from one end of the closure to the other) after thinking very narrowly about both the problem and the solution space. It provides uses like mine with effectively no real planned alternative. Destinations and trail users between the two ends of the closure, especially south of the trail, were not seemingly considered as part of the planned detour.

Fortunately, there is a ready, obvious, low-cost (in the context of the entire budget of SWLRT) solution available and waiting to be implemented. As a bonus, it is apparently the unspoken, intended solution for reaching these points south of the trail: Bike on Excelsior Boulevard. That is to say, you are either expected to bike on Excelsior Boulevard to get to and from these neglected destinations, or not bike at all.

Project planners should provide a route alternative that functions more like the route that’s being replaced, and using Excelsior Boulevard is an easy way to accomplish that. But “bike on Excelsior Boulevard,” by itself, is not a plan. In Excelsior Boulevard’s current configuration it’s effectively volunteering for vehicular homicide, or a decision to shut down certain bike trips entirely for two to three years.

Here is a plan: temporarily take part of the Excelsior Boulevard right of way, protect it with jersey barriers, and create a protected Bikeway during the closure.

Excelsior Boulevard parallels this stretch of the trail, is near to both ends of the closure for easy routing on to and off of the detour, and can continue to function to carry automobile traffic even if some of it is given, temporarily and over this 3.6 mile stretch, to bikes and other trail users. I’m ready and willing to bike on Excelsior Blvd. to get to where I need to go. I just want to be able to do it safely.

Put up some jersey barriers to protect one lane of Excelsior Boulevard and use it to provide users of the Cedar Lake Trail a genuine, useful substitute. The already-planned scenic detour can be kept as well. One detour for north of the trail, and one for south.

This proposal also ensures that the pain of closing 3.6 miles of trail for two to three years (really, they couldn’t have phased work in that portion or planned for shorter, targeted closures?) is seen and shared by all transportation modes. If you’re going to close a transportation corridor for years, we shouldn’t be sparing automobile users from experiencing some of that loss.

The right of way on Excelsior Boulevard belongs to all of us. We should put some of it to an important use during this significant, region-wide construction project, spread out the discomfort of this significant closure, and fix this bare-minimum, deficient bike detour. Everyone should share in the necessary compromises.

Causing car drivers to share some of the pain could also motivate project planners to value more highly the burdens being placed on cyclists and other trail users for this planned closure. And, possibly, motivate them to reconsider their choice not to exercise more thought about whether and how long to close a major transportation corridor with a bare-bones alternative just because the users are considered less important, and to have unlimited, less-valuable time.

Finally, if your objection to this proposal is that it would cause automobile congestion on Excelsior Blvd., there’s no reason some of those road users can’t go up to Minnetonka Blvd. (or Highway 7) as an alternative.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/15/share-the-pain-swlrt-related-trail-closure/feed/23A Roster of Potential TaaS Vehicleshttps://streets.mn/2019/05/15/a-roster-of-potential-taas-vehicles/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/15/a-roster-of-potential-taas-vehicles/#commentsWed, 15 May 2019 14:00:08 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=78204Previously I’ve written about how I don’ t think Transportation as a Service (TaaS), the rideshare model of electric self-driving cars will become as universal as soon as some optimists have predicted. Loss of the pride of ownership, privacy, and the “yuck” factor of shared vehicles are some factors working against it. Yet the economics and convenience of TaaS are such that it will be adopted by many people (just not virtually everyone nor as soon as postulated). Here’s a look at what I think our TaaS vehicle fleet will look like. Since one thing I can’t do is draw, I’ve used public domain photos of existing vehicles as I think TaaS will be adopted from existing form factors. Just pretend you’re looking at these vehicles without the steering wheel.

The Micro-Car: “TaaS Personal”

This is the standard TaaS vehicle, It sits one person in front, and maybe a few bags of groceries to the side and in the back. Cars today typically carry only one person, but can hold a lot more. True single person cars don’t really exist due to the cost and difficulty of obtaining a larger vehicle should the need arise, which is no longer an issue with TaaS. Even if you only need a larger vehicle once a week, today the difficulty and expense of renting one makes that option impractical. Future factors encouraging adoption of TaaS Personal: there’s 8 foot lanes on many highways that can be used exclusively by the smaller vehicles. Automatic driving is now so safe that being in a small car in a crash is no longer something people fear. In fact, motoring is so safe that seat belts, airbags, and child seats are a thing of the past.

The Sedan: “TaaS Black Elite Premiere”

Right now sedans are still one of the most common form factors. Like the the crossover, they fit the needs of most users most of the time and offer secure trunk storage (at the cost of larger overall storage, upright seating, and better winter capabilities of crossovers). In the TaaS world they’ve mostly been replaced by larger and smaller vehicles since it’s rare that you need something the exact size and form of a sedan. But some sedans had an air of luxury about them, and that’s carried over into TaaS Black Elite Premiere.

Since their beginning, transportation companies have found people will pay a lot more for features that cost little more to provide. In the early days of railroad travel, it would have cost little to put a roof on an open railroad car. But by leaving it off, those that would pay a lot more for having a roof bought 1st class. Price discrimination didn’t end with railroads, however the differences are more subtle in today’s cars. The “Limited” trim level of cars doesn’t cost auto manufacturers anywhere close to what they charge for it compared to the “Base” or “Sport.” But you like the leather seats, better stereo, and frankly you like everyone seeing the “Limited” badge on your car. You feel you’re worth it.

So with TaaS, there’s still an air of “artificial luxury” available for people willing to pay several times the rate of TaaS Personal. TaaS Black Elite Premieres are painted black, with no advertising and very subtle branding, instead of white and bright colors like every other vehicle. They have fake leather instead of vinyl seats (cloth being dropped as un-hygienic and hard to clean in a shared vehicle). They have much better entertainment systems. And they come with built in espresso machines and minibars- since no drives you can of course have alcohol in TaaS vehicles although there’s a stiff fine for smoking. The disappearance of non-luxury sedans further cements the elite status of them.

The Minivan: “TaaS Standard”

Next to to the micro-car, the minivan is by far the most common form factor. This is the standard shared TaaS vehicle- Up to 9 people in your neighborhood going to work, 9 kids in your neighborhood going to school. But you can also charter it as a private vehicle for double the price of a TaaS Standard. As such it’s ideal for making the weekly shopping run to the grocery store, bringing home IKEA furniture, taking the kids to their swimming lessons or going anywhere else as a family. With four or more people the cost to privately charter a Taas Standard is about the same as four seats in a shared vehicle. With the seats folded down flat into the floor you can easily haul things as big as standard drywall without stepping up to chartering next size vehicle, the “Taas Hauler”. Or you can flip down two beds from the side for two people on longer trips.

The Pickup Truck: “TaaS Hauler”

The old standard the pickup, branded the “TaaS Hauler” is still around, because there’s still some things you just can’t do in any other TaaS vehicle. There are definitely a lot fewer pickups though. Today quite a few people commute with them to work because they need the capabilities on the weekends and can’t afford or store multiple vehicles. Capabilities like hauling plywood and drywall home from Menards, hauling wood chips home to the garden, hauling dirty bulk stuff where you don’t want to get hit with a cleanup charge for putting it in a nice TaaS Standard, towing the boat up to the cabin. But with TaaS it’s just as easy to summon a TaaS Hauler on the weekend as it is a TaaS Personal for the drive to work, the same TaaS Haulers that are hauling construction supplies for contractors around during the week.

Uniquely Taas Haulers still come with manual controls. Using manual controls in normal weather conditions is illegal on the interstates or within the city limits of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and there’s talk about banning their use on all public roads. Not many people are even licensed to operate them. But manual controls still come in handy for certain scenarios. For off-roading for fun or working around a construction site using the computerized interface is cumbersome compared to an old fashioned pedal and steering wheel, and the high torque provided by electric motors makes them ideal for these purposes.

Since TaaS Haulers have a high ground clearance, big tires, and four wheel drive, these are also used for people that just have to go out no matter what the weather, where snow is so bad that it exceeds the capability of regular TaaS vehicles. When that happens most schools and businesses shut down. But the police, newscasters, and hospital workers absolutely must get to work, so they will summon a TaaS Hauler to drive to their place the night before and then control it manually if the weather exceeds the capabilities of the self-drive the next day.

The Van: TaaS Full Size

Topping the scales is the TaaS Full Size. Fitting 15 people, these are used when a large group of people needs go go someplace. Like a group of people from a large apartment complex to their jobs at Amazon or downtown, or their kids to the local school. Or the school swimming team to a meet. There’s nothing resembling a full sized bus anymore, since the economics of TaaS makes door to door service possible. Who would want to walk in the cold and snow and wait for a school or transit bus when a TaaS vehicle will show up at your door? To move large groups of people like the 4th grade class field trip to the box factory, multiple TaaS Full Sizes are chartered.

Flip down the seats and have an incredible amount of space for small moves or hauling plywood or Ikea furniture. Or four bunks flip down from the sides to take the family on an overnight road trip (If you have more than four people in your family you can fit a mattress or two in the aisle in the middle, or else charter a second vehicle).

Extreme Commuting

Something I’ve touched on before is how the lack of new affordable single family detached houses is going to drive people to live further and further out of the city, and the cheapness of electric cars and the lack of the need to drive is going to enable this. Pretty soon single family detached homes in the metro will be in the exclusive realm of upper class professionals, as well as those in the middle class still lucky enough to have jobs, bought their house a long time ago, and not been forced out by skyrocketing property taxes. Since garage space is no longer needed, some people will buy a townhouse and renovate the former garage into additional bedrooms so their kids aren’t forced to share.

But there’s still a demand for the space, privacy, sense of ownership, and your own yard that only detached homes can provider. Increasingly people are some are buying detached houses in places like Byron and Milica and getting together with a few other families to charter a TaaS Full Sized each day to commute to the cities. Their kids go to charter schools in the cities so the kids can ride along, the commutes are filled with family time playing games or watching movies or doing homework. With the distances involved chartering a private vehicle individually would be prohibitively expensive.

Effect on Travel

I can see a boom in travel opportunities with TaaS. Rates are assuredly going to be lower outside of peak commuting times, so chartering one for travel in off-peak times becomes attractive. Here’s travel demand by time of day in Tampa Bay, I don’t see this being much different in the TaaS world in the Twin Cities.

A leisure drive around the Grand Rounds on a nice Sunday afternoon becomes a lot more leisurely when the car does the driving for you. And a airplane trip to Orlando becomes less aggravating when there’s a TaaS vehicle waiting to pick you up outside the airport instead of facing the rental counter gauntlet. But it’s the intermediate distances that I see the most opportunity for, say 500 miles. Right now you can drive your car to the airport, pay to park it, go through our security theater, and then arrive an hour later in Chicago with no car. Maybe that’s fine if you just want to take the train to downtown, but I tend to stay in Hampton Inn / Holiday Inn Express type places in the suburbs that are much cheaper but not rail accessible, and go to places like Six Flags that are not rail accessible either. Or you can spend eight hours driving your car with as much stuff as you want, but arrive weary and frazzled.

But what about chartering a TaaS Standard or Full Sized with bunks? Pack up the family on a Friday night, go to bed for the night, and wake up in Chicago or the Black Hills, in your own vehicle that carries your own stuff and can take you anywhere in the city of the forest. There’s going to have to be secured places around the periphery of the city to store and charge TaaS vehicles, I can foresee adding showers and restrooms there so you could spend the night in your car rather than renting a hotel room.

Cloudgate, Chicago

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/15/a-roster-of-potential-taas-vehicles/feed/4Edina Debates a Comprehensive Planhttps://streets.mn/2019/05/14/edina-debates-a-comprehensive-plan/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/14/edina-debates-a-comprehensive-plan/#commentsTue, 14 May 2019 15:30:12 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80113Edina’s City Council approved a draft comprehensive plan last Tuesday. While it’s not nearly as ambitious as the 2040 plan approved last year in Minneapolis, the Edina plan has still attracted some organized opposition.

Bruce Christensen, creator of two anti-population growth websites in Edina (stopthelid.com and We Can Do Better Edina), led a contingent of of residents whose testimony focused on opposition to Metropolitan Council population forecasts. Those forecasts, showing Edina growing by 33 percent by 2040, were incorporated into the plan. Christensen called the plan a “massive density vision.”

Among the residents echoing that sentiment was Jill Fay who said, “I have 5 children and I’ve raised them up here. I like Edina a lot. I’m just here to say I wish the city were growing not so at a rapid pace. I find it disappointing because I want my children to be able to live here some day and then raise a family like I did.”

Population growth estimate chart from Edina comprehensive plan.

Here’s a statistic cited throughout Tuesday’s meeting: 93 percent of Edina’s land area will see no change — and in some cases a decrease — in allowed density. Edina Planning Commissioner Todd Thorsen emphasized the degree to which they’re maintaining the status quo in his presentation to the City Council:

“We’re taking a very different view in Edina about how we’re accommodating population growth vs. Minneapolis. We’ve concentrated it in those areas of change, whereas Minneapolis has adopted a different view […] which is allowing triplexes in typically R1 [single-family] areas. This plan really maintains those [single-family] areas in the very heart of Edina…”

Thorsen noted that population forecasts are not goals, but are used for planning purposes. There’s no penalty for not reaching a particular forecasted number, but there is a downside to underestimating: less state funding for things like affordable housing and transportation. Thorsen told the Council, “If we were to try and get the Met Council to reduce our forecasts that could reduce the transit dollars and opportunities that are coming to Edina.”

Council Member Mike Fischer said, “The reality is we haven’t actually increased [allowed] densities that much over the previous comp plan.”

While population densities would remain the same — or decreased — for 93% of Edina, that doesn’t mean low-density areas won’t see change. But that change takes the form of single-family teardown/rebuilds. Mayor Jim Hovland said the city should be proud of the trend: “What a tremendous investment the town can be so proud of. We’ve had over 800 of our single family homes torn down and rebuilt.”

Those rebuilds are exclusively single-family homes — bigger and more expensive than the ones they replace. And there’s nothing in the draft plan approved by the City Council that would halt that trend — and nothing that would allow two or three families to occupy a house the size of a large single-family home (as in the Minneapolis 2040 plan).

Mayor Hovland also noted that multifamily housing has “been subsidizing single-family homeownership” in Edina. He pointed to the example of condos that pay double the property taxes of the median single-family home, per square foot. “We haven’t wanted to heap that [property tax] burden on the 93% of folks that are living in a single-family home.”

Council Member Kevin Staunton said he knows many people move to Edina for the great schools but “the problem is eventually all the single family homes are filled and there isn’t room for the next generation.” Edina schools have seen a 26% decline in enrollment between 1970 and 2010. Despite Edina adding households, families got smaller.

Staunton also gave this statistic: between 1989 and 2017, incomes in Edina doubled while single-family home prices tripled. “Now some people would say that’s a good thing, but I’m not sure it’s sustainable. And it does raise a question about affordability.”

Resident Chris Bremer spoke in support of the plan:

“I’m deeply concerned about what kind of world we will leave our children and grandchildren. And so I believe we need to grow responsibly. This means higher density housing which will bring new and better transit and reduce commuting and greenhouse gases throughout our region. It also means developing more affordable housing.”

Carolyn Jackson, who chairs the city’s Energy and Environment Commission, noted that 40,000 people commute into Edina every day. She supports creating more housing options so that some of those 40,000 could live in Edina, which would reduce car traffic and greenhouse gas emissions.

Bremer’s response to the comment about apartment families: “I grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in a family of four and I would maintain that I turned out ok.”

Edina is scheduled to submit a final comprehensive plan to the Metropolitan Council by the end of this year.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/14/edina-debates-a-comprehensive-plan/feed/25National Links: The Channel Tunnel and Da Vinci’s Ideal Cityhttps://streets.mn/2019/05/14/national-links-the-channel-tunnel-and-da-vincis-ideal-city/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/14/national-links-the-channel-tunnel-and-da-vincis-ideal-city/#respondTue, 14 May 2019 14:15:48 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80022Every day at The Overhead Wire we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the DC region. They are national links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

Future of Housing Nothing Like Today’s: As many as 41% of Americans buying a home are considering accommodating an elderly parent or an adult child. With changing family dynamics and rising housing costs, multigenerational households are one of the ways housing in the US is changing. In 1980, only 12% of Americans lived with more than two generations in a household; that figure is now 20% and continues to climb. The nation’s housing stock, however, consists of primarily single-family homes that do not meet this changing idea of “normal” family households. Some innovations in housing, like cohousing communities, offer solutions. (Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan | Fast Company)

LA’s I-405 Widening Does Nothing: Sepulveda Pass, the canyon route that I-405 traverses linking the San Fernando Valley with LA’s Westside, underwent a major overhaul five years ago. 10 miles of interstate were widened, costing more than $1 billion. At all times of day, average commutes in both directions either worsened or stayed the same. The worst change happened to drivers traveling north between 3 and 4pm, where there was an almost 50% increase in travel time through the Sepulveda Pass. The project demonstrates the diminishing returns of highway widening. Potential future solutions on the route to the congestion include toll lanes and a rail line currently scheduled to operate by 2033. (Elijah Chiland | Curbed LA)

Da Vinci’s Ideal City, Ahead of Its Time: Leonardo Da Vinci died exactly 500 years ago, but his dream of the ideal city retains its significance. Da Vinci conceived multilevel cities linked with vertical staircases, which are commonplace in high-rises now but were unconventional in his time. He also imagined subdivisions based on city function, with wide and well-ventilated boulevards for residents above, and services and infrastructure in the lower levels. Such ideas of mixed-use, compact development did not take shape until the 19th century, but da Vinci was aligned closely with modern urban planning, centuries ahead of his time. (Alessandro Melis | The Conversation)

The Channel Tunnel, on Its 25th Birthday: The engineering marvel linking England and France opened 25 years ago this week. The first noted proposal for a subterranean connection emerged in 1802, and engineers even began to dig into the bedrock before plans were abandoned in 1882; finally, in 1988, did the modern tunnel break ground. The tunnel spans 31 miles, 23 of which are undersea. It is often credited with reviving intercity rail travel in Europe, with roughly 4.5 million UK tourists using the tunnel each year; even better, a train ride from London to Paris via the Channel Tunnel emits 90% less greenhouse gases than the equivalent short-haul flight. (Joe Minihane | CNN Travel)

Houston First-Time Buyers Compete with Data: Hedge funds are using data to track and buy homes; in cities like Houston, entry-level home buyers are forced to compete. These hedge funds are snapping up single-family homes and turning them into rentals, reducing the affordable stock available to first-time buyers. Entera, a company based in Houston, designed software that could identify and locate deals faster than the average human could. On average, an Entera user could take three minutes from when a property hits the market to make an offer. Institutional buyers, like hedge funds, are quickly changing the way potential homeowners enter the market. (R.A. Schuetz | Houston Chronicle)

Quote of the Week

“That gentrification is—except in a handful of cities—pretty unusual is not news. But you wouldn’t know it from the way people talk about the way we live now. The three new studies emphasize the need for us to keep two ideas in our heads at once: Gentrification is real and is sometimes accompanied by displacement. But most neighborhoods are either rich and getting richer, or they are just getting poorer (mostly the second).”

This week on the podcast, representatives of Geisinger Health discuss how healthcare and transportation interact.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/14/national-links-the-channel-tunnel-and-da-vincis-ideal-city/feed/0Watch Mr. Blandings’ Dream House 5/21, with Discussion After the Filmhttps://streets.mn/2019/05/13/watch-mr-blandings-dream-house-5-21-with-discussion-after-the-film/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/13/watch-mr-blandings-dream-house-5-21-with-discussion-after-the-film/#respondMon, 13 May 2019 21:00:27 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80098Next week, join streets.mn for the first ever “Night at the Movies.” The peerless Trylon Cinema in South Minneapolis is showing an absolute classic film about US suburbia — Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House — and we’re hosting a film and discussion evening.

If you’re not familiar with this landmark film, it’s a 1948 comedy starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy (my personal fave) about a couple who move from the big city into the Connecticut suburbs. It was a cultural touchstone for the next decade during the rapid suburbanization of US cities, and we’re going to seize this opportunity to have a discussion about what Mr. Blandings Dream House can still tell us about urban landscapes today.

Hope to see you there! It’s a fun movie and one of the best films ever made about the suburbs.

Fun fact: Did you know that GE and RKO Pictures promoted the film by actually building “Blanding’s Dream Houses” in cities around the country? The closest one to the Trylon is in South Saint Paul, though the term was used to promote real estate all over the place (like the South Minneapolis example below).

Also fun: Here are some old ads for the film from 1948 that I dug up…

Northtown Theater in North Minneapolis

Ge made “dream houses” all over the US.

Theater in Hopkins had “free parking.”

“Suburban” home on Minnehaha Creek advertised to match the film, 1948.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/13/watch-mr-blandings-dream-house-5-21-with-discussion-after-the-film/feed/0Map Monday: Minnesota Working Moms With Children Under 6https://streets.mn/2019/05/13/map-monday-minnesota-working-moms-with-children-under-6/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/13/map-monday-minnesota-working-moms-with-children-under-6/#respondMon, 13 May 2019 19:30:08 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80028Mother’s Day was yesterday, but moms don’t get days off. Especially if you’re a working mom with children under 6.

The focus on children under age 6 is, in part, because these children typically require full-day care or preschool programs. The nature of childcare changes for school-age children, although the challenges of school start/end times and before- and after-care are their own special challenge for parents depending on location, busing and other factors.

The percentages in much of the state reflect similar trends as seen nationally. In general, women are more likely to leave the workforce to become caregivers than men due to a variety of social and economic contributors.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/13/map-monday-minnesota-working-moms-with-children-under-6/feed/0Grieving the Life We Trade Away for Drivinghttps://streets.mn/2019/05/13/the-life-from-which-cars-keep-us/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/13/the-life-from-which-cars-keep-us/#commentsMon, 13 May 2019 14:30:19 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79920Not long ago, I felt particularly invisible while crossing a street near where I live. A stop sign was to my left, and I was walking parallel with the busy, illegally fast right-of-way traffic.

(Once, on the same street, on a corner where I walk at least a few times each week, a car careened over the boulevard, over the sidewalk, and into a brick building; maybe the driver was late for an appointment.)

The car approaching the stop sign from my left was a good 50 yards away when I began my crossing. It closed its distance from me in an instant, and I hustled across the intersection because the driver’s speed indicated no knowledge of the stop sign, let alone of me. The car halted abruptly. The impact thrust the driver and her passenger forward in their seats — a classic illustration of, “Oops! I stopped too fast because I was driving recklessly.”

That forward lean was all the better for the driver to look around me and gauge whether the traffic was clear; it was not to look at me, or for me, to see whether I was still upright . . . or even there at all. I know because I stood still for a moment to look at the driver, figuring she would make eye contact and wave or shrug an apology (she didn’t). She drove away safely in spite of herself, and I’m not convinced she ever knew a living person was anywhere near her.

I thought, “What a sad, lost, hazardous, impersonal, isolated way for us to be around each other,” if you can call it “being around each other” at all.

Noticed while biking: Two geese await a train. These geese also do have the option of flying to their destination.

I have a theory that when we drive, our brains — in their amazing efficiency — function only in a rudimentary way that allows them to scan objects and react quickly, without taking in much else. So much is going on when we drive –– steering wheel, gas, brakes, mirrors, blinkers, lights, wipers, maintaining warm or cool air temperature –– that the brain (necessarily) has no time to engage deeply with the world or with one’s own life. That’s good in this case, because the driver is supposed to be focused on driving.

But it introduces a broader idea: If you didn’t drive, you probably could encounter more opportunities to confront your life and your interconnectedness with the world around you. The motorist brain, in its (impressive) efficiency, arranges people into the same category as light posts, signs, walls and houses. I don’t think the motorist brain sees people or pets; it sees objects. So when a car passes a cyclist, the driver (understandably) has no time to consider the awesomeness of that cyclist’s life, or how running over that person with a speeding metal machine would undo all of the cyclist’s desires and gratitudes and future plans.

This is not a morality judgement; it’s what our brains do in the interest of performing a task. What I grieve for is the life we trade away in order to drive places.

We share aliveness with so many species that we keep uncovering, with astonishment, new species that are miraculously alive, but you wouldn’t know it from driving a car. Instead of seeing the funny things squirrels do, or watching deer amble, we see the stricken dead animals when we drive; then we strike down more animals to leave abandoned on the road (in spite of all that brain efficiency).

A few weeks ago I saw two possums cuddling in a neighbor’s front yard. Because I was walking, I had the freedom to stop and marvel for a while. Losing that freedom and gift of time is the price I pay for driving.

A turtle greeting cyclists from the grass along the Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis.

My awareness is no better than anyone else’s. (Confession: Our dog pointed out the possums to me!) The connection I have with the Earth, already obscured by smartphones and advertising, becomes even more fleeting when I am in a car. I’m already prone to distraction. I don’t need anything else blocking me from the smell or sight of flowers. Our time is short. Some trees flower for only a week. Some bugs live for only one day –– but as an old friend told me, that’s a big day for the bug.

Lilac trees, which bloom for only a short while, are best observed up close.

Emotionally, intellectually, ecologically, cars desecrate the spirit of existence. They kill us quickly (collision) or slowly (air pollution, lack of exercise). Meanwhile, in places where the smog is heavy, sometimes you can’t see the sky.

On my usual bike route, one road often has a sign that says, ROAD CLOSED FOR EVENT. Considering that a nearby field ant can lift 5,000 times its body weight (an event if ever I’ve heard of one!), by this criterion the road would never be open to cars again. A more alive, more community-minded form of traffic actually deserves the right of way.

Apartment department

Conrad Zbikowski offers another preview of a new mixed use building going up with the Iron Clad Mixed-Use Development Opening “Mid-June” at the southeast corner of Chicago and Washington Avenues in the Mill District. More policy-related, he also crunches some numbers to find It’s Impossible to Afford Rent on the Minimum Wage both the Minneapolis and Saint Paul current minimum wages or the $15.00 hour rate they are working toward (based on the 30% of income standard of affordability). Commenters note that this state of affairs is not new, but they faced comparable challenges in the 1970s and 1990s.

Bikes, looking back and ahead

What’s in a Bicycle? asks Fred Kreider after buying his first ever brand new bike after years of riding. The answer: “But, when taken in abstract, as a vehicle that weighs 29 pounds and (god forbid) can be disassembled to fit in the backseat of a car, the bicycle is an extremely versatile instrument of freedom, recreation, independence and joy.”

Other good ideas

When Quality of Life Initiatives Make Places Worse from Christa Moseng critiques Metro Transit’s Respect, Kindness, Inclusivity initiative and asks, “What specifically is Metro Transit doing wrong? They’re announcing, on lighted signs and in amplified announcements that the Metro Transit Code of Conduct is subject to police enforcement. That is, it’s gone from a campaign of social encouragement, to a command with the explicit (repeated) threat of force under color of law.” Plus, the Code of Conduct itself is “vague and overbroad” making police enforcement even more problematic.

It’s Spring! Plant a Boulevard Garden says Jenny Werness, and so she did (without consulting the map below, apparently). This post is a photo-celebration of boulevard gardens (her own and many others) plus a helpful how-to guide for figuring out what to plant in a space subject to a variety of insults from salt, snow piles, dogs, and more.

The Iron Clad project includes market-rate apartments, a new Moxy hotel, and retail.

Iron Clad broke ground on October 23, 2017, and now nearly 18 months later, the project is close to completion. According to a leasing spokesperson, the 166 market-rate apartments and 153-key hotel will be opening in “mid-June” with retail opening up later. As of April 15, the development has no signed leases for retail space.

As we have seen with the East End development across Chicago Ave (what some affectionately call the “fish scale building”), it has been difficult to completely lease out ground-floor retail space. At East End, Sherman Associates is opening a franchise Starbucks in less than a month, a Starbucks location where baristas and shift managers are employees of Sherman.

Now in 2019, the project still is slated for 166 apartments, a 153-key “Moxy” hotel, but with retail space increased to 14,918 square feet. Because this project started before the inclusionary zoning ordinance passed, there was no requirement for an affordable component.

Council Member Steve Fletcher, who took office in January 2018, sees greater residential density supporting more retail density and public amenities. “The more apartments come online, and the more people move into the neighborhood, the more critical mass for customers there is.”

What would your ideal mixed-use project include? Are you a fan of glass, metal panels, brick, or something else? What kind of retail or restaurant would you like to see open in your neighborhood?

Photos of the project as of April 15

The view of Iron Clad from the north side of Washington on an undeveloped strip parcel on April 15. Photo: Author

Iron Clad is now leasing for retail and office tenants. Photo: Author

There is a pedestrian frontage that follows rail right-of-way that divides the two land parcels. Photo: Author

The Iron Clad development is sheathed in black metal panelling and large glass windows. Photo: Author

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/10/iron-clad-mixed-use-development-opening-mid-june/feed/9Chart of the Day: Fuel Economy, Weight, and Horsepower, 1975 – 2018https://streets.mn/2019/05/09/chart-of-the-day-fuel-economy-weight-and-horsepower-1975-2018/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/09/chart-of-the-day-fuel-economy-weight-and-horsepower-1975-2018/#commentsThu, 09 May 2019 21:12:07 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80016Here’s a chart about cars, showing the changes since 1975 in some key dynamics about how cars use energy and how big they are. It’s from the EPA’s latest report on automotive trends, and it pegs these three variables at 1975 levels, charting the changes.

Check it out:

As you can see, there were big changes in the late 1970s, during the oil crisis, where cars became smaller and more fuel efficient relatively quickly.

Since then, though, personal vehicles in the US have been getting heavier and more powerful at a steady pace. Fuel economy, on the other hand, has seen improvements since about 2004. (Thanks, Obama.)

The overall market continues to move towards both car SUVs and truck SUVs. Combined, car and truck SUVs captured a record high 43% market share in model year 2017. … All five vehicle types are at or near record low CO2 emissions and record high fuel economy and have steadily improved in recent years. However, the market shift towards SUVs and away from sedan/wagons has offset some of the fleetwide benefits that otherwise would have been achieved from the increased fuel economy within each vehicle type.

…

However, since model year 2004 technology has been used to increase fuel economy (up 29%) and power (up 11%), while maintaining vehicle weight and reducing CO2 emissions (down 23%). The improvement in CO2 emissions and fuel economy since 2004 is due to many factors, including gasoline prices, consumer preference, and increasing stringency of NHTSA light-duty car and truck CAFE standards.

Check out the whole report online.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/09/chart-of-the-day-fuel-economy-weight-and-horsepower-1975-2018/feed/33The Case for a Saint Paul Flag Redesignhttps://streets.mn/2019/05/09/the-case-for-a-saint-paul-flag-redesign/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/09/the-case-for-a-saint-paul-flag-redesign/#commentsThu, 09 May 2019 17:00:03 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79928One thing I noticed very early on when I moved to Saint Paul was how difficult it was to get involved with city government and politics.

For starters, I noticed a stark difference between St. Paul’s city hall and that of Minneapolis. The Minneapolis city hall is open, you can gather in the foyer. Minneapolis city council members face residents when they meet. By contrast, Saint Paul’s city hall reminds me of what I assume Kim Jong Un’s rec room looks like. There are metal detectors, security guards, a giant rotating statue bearing down on you surrounded by black marble beams and zero windows.

The city hall chambers are also missing translucent windows – instead decorated with stained glass figures (all men). City council members sit in a circle facing away from residents. Nothing about the built environment invites participation in city government, including our city flag. Did you know we even had a city flag?

(Los Gatos certainly doesn’t look like a gem…)

There are some who do know Saint Paul has a flag and even fly it outside their home (myself included). Some very much like the current design, which is great, but let’s break down how it is currently maintaining the inaccessible nature of our city government.

Good flag design is important. If you don’t believe me ask Roman Mars (seriously, watch his TED Talk it’s awesome). People are aware that countries and states have flags but for the most part people don’t know that their city has a flag as well. The reason most people don’t realize their city has a flag is because they are generally terrible.

(Photo Credit Chicago Times)

However, some cities get it very right. A perfect example is the Chicago flag. You can find it all over Chicago – there’s a whole website dedicated to Chicago flag tattoos – and it’s known across the country and the world. Police in Chicago actually have their flag placed on their caskets when they pass rather than the American flag.

Why is the Chicago flag everywhere? Why do so many people love it so much? The answer is pretty simple – it follows the five principles of design that every amazing flag follows:

Keep it simple. Nothing captures this better than the Japanese flag. A good flag design should be so simple a child could draw it.

Use meaningful symbolism. You can read about the history and symbolism of the Chicago flag here.

Use 2 or 3 basic colors. This maintains the simplicity that every flag needs.

Be distinctive or be related. Sometimes the good designs are already “taken”. However, a flag’s symbols, colors, and shapes can recall other flags—a powerful way to show heritage, solidarity, or connectedness. This requires knowledge of other flags.

Now let’s take a look at how the current Saint Paul flag stacks up.

Saint Paul City Flag

Keep it simple. The Saint Paul flag is relatively simple but still too cluttered and probably too complicated for a small child to draw. Flags are seen at a distance so having too many fine details is problematic because you really can’t see them when the flag is being flown anyway.

Use meaningful symbolism. The Saint Paul flag is thoughtful about what important aspects of our city are included – a blue mid stripe representing the Mississippi River; a small cabin stands for Father Gaultier’s original St. Paul chapel; a dome represents Minnesota’s Capitol and a winged wheel indicates St. Paul’s position as a transportation hub. The flag also contains a star of the north, symbolic of Minnesota, and a red shield, representing the progress and spirit of the city, while gold stripes are symbolic of the future.

Use 2 or 3 basic colors. This principle is definitely followed.

No lettering or seals. Unlike the Minnesota flag, the Saint Paul flag doesn’t add it’s seal but does for some reason include the name of the city. Now to be fair, originally the flags designer Gladys Mittle, an art student at the College of St. Kate’s, did not include the name but if you have to put the name of your city on your flag you have failed.

Be distinctive or related. The Saint Paul flag is fairly distinctive and gives a nod to the state of Minnesota through the north star.

Is our city flag utterly and completely hopeless? Not at all. But just like our city government it isn’t accessible either. Sure, folks like myself who pay attention to city politics and actively engage in them fly it, but do others? The answer is largely no. My own next door neighbor who has lived in Saint Paul for decades had no idea what it was for until I told her (even putting your name on a flag apparently doesn’t really help).

(Redesign ideas by Joe Totten and Kevin Gallatin)

Great flag design encourages involvement and city pride and can connect us in ways most people don’t even think of. Mayor of South Bend Indiana Pete Buttigieg, a current presidential candidate, described their recent redesigned flag as an “appropriate exclamation point to the South Bend 150 celebration” and a “unifying symbol that let’s all of us, literally, wear our city pride on our sleeve”.

A great flag can stimulate a local economy, advertise a city all over the world and be a welcome sign to visitors and new residents. If our flag was great it wouldn’t require us to defend how great it was. It would be seen everywhere without much encouragement. Our flag is neither absolutely terrible or particularly great. Much like many aspects of our city, let’s take the good and strive to make it better, more inclusive, more accessible and something everyone, not just the few, feel proud of.

I have a friend who knew Alan well, and she’d brought her two kids on the the ride. Earlier we’d given each other big hugs, and there were plenty of people in the group that knew Alan personally and were shaken by his untimely death.
– A Hopeful Sign from the Memorial Ride

Please keep comments about your endearing memories of the ride and/or Alan. There are other Streets.mn articles for discussion on cycling safety, etc.

Thank you.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/09/alan-grahn-memorial-ride-may-16-2018-video/feed/4Chart of the Day: Typical Distances By Transportation Mode, Log Scalehttps://streets.mn/2019/05/08/chart-of-the-day-typical-distances-by-transportation-mode-log-scale/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/08/chart-of-the-day-typical-distances-by-transportation-mode-log-scale/#respondWed, 08 May 2019 19:00:08 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=80007Here’s a chart that caught my eye, from a post on Why Is This Interesting about micromobility. First let’s look at the chart, which, with its log-scale and comprehensive scope, is the kind of chart that makes me excited about charts.

Noah Brier talks about how micromobility, specifically meaning e-scooters and e-bikes, fill in a lot of the gaps between walking and cars. (They are just like bicycles in this regard.) Here’s the key point:

When you look at the average distance of trips across different modes of transport it’s clear where the gap is: trips that are long enough to be an annoying walk and short enough to feel like a waste of a car ride. That distance is doable with a regular bike, but if there’s a hill you may be huffing and sweating by the end. The e-bike takes all that away, giving you just enough power to make an otherwise intimidating climb into, at worst, a few aggressive pedals.

Given how regular pedal bicycles, while being extremely efficient, have not made great gains in mode-share in the US as of yet, anything that can begin to “fill in” some of that demand without resorting to inefficient and dangerous car travel seems like a great idea.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/08/chart-of-the-day-typical-distances-by-transportation-mode-log-scale/feed/0It’s Impossible to Afford Rent on the Minimum Wagehttps://streets.mn/2019/05/08/its-impossible-to-afford-rent-on-the-minimum-wage/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/08/its-impossible-to-afford-rent-on-the-minimum-wage/#commentsWed, 08 May 2019 17:00:40 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79485Minneapolis and St. Paul both recently passed municipal minimum wage ordinances that were intended to lift up the working poor. In Minneapolis, the current minimum wage is $11.25 for large businesses, and that is scheduled to increase to $15.00 by July 1, 2022. The current minimum wage in St. Paul is the state minimum of $9.86. St. Paul’s phase-in starts in 2020, with a $15.00 minimum wage by July 1, 2022.

Even with these higher wages, it is still impossible to afford rent in each city.

The federal standard for housing affordability is 30% of income. While an arbitrary standard, it is most often used as the benchmark for housing affordability.

For a minimum wage worker in Minneapolis working 2,000 hours a year, an affordable rent is $563 per month. For a minimum wage worker in St. Paul, that figure is $493 per month.

On April 19, I created a map (see above) of median rents in neighborhoods of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I used KML polygon files from each city’s GIS office for the neighborhood boundaries, and merged it with corresponding median rent data from Rentometer.com.

The map shows what many would expect: high rents in the downtowns and wealthy neighborhoods, and low rents in marginalized neighborhoods.

The most expensive neighborhood of Minneapolis to rent was Downtown East at a median price of $2,045 for a 1-bedroom. In St. Paul the most expensive was West 7th at $1,325. The least expensive neighborhoods were McKinley in Minneapolis at $625 and Greater East Side in St. Paul at $788 for a 1-bedroom.

For studios, there were no studios in McKinley in Rentometer’s dataset. In Greater East Side, there were no studios in the dataset, but the minimum price of a 1-bedroom in the dataset was $500 at 1581 Ivy Ave E. Thirty percent of income at minimum wage is $493 per month.

Of note: the Rentometer dataset is not a complete view of the rental market. It is unclear what the dataset includes, because the technology is proprietary, but Streets.MN commentators have said it likely does not include some rentals from the “missing middle” of duplexes, triplexes, and other mid-rise apartments.

Metro Transit has stepped up a previously ill-defined “anti-harassment” initiative to promote “respect, kindness and inclusion among our riders.” This has manifested in station announcements, signage, and scrolling messages on buses that a lot of people probably find innocuous, or even welcome.

However, the way it has chosen to go about this campaign is itself hostile, implictly threatening, and disrespectful. It’s also retrogressive, and it particularly chafes in Minneapolis, where the City has recently signaled its will to move away from similar tactics and policies because of the harm they do to minority communities.

What specifically is Metro Transit doing wrong? They’re announcing, on lighted signs and in amplified announcements that the Metro Transit Code of Conduct is subject to police enforcement. That is, it’s gone from a campaign of social encouragement, to a command with the explicit (repeated) threat of force under color of law.

Look, first of all, even if it’s true that Metro Transit police will enforce the code of conduct, announcing it repeatedly is unpleasant and makes the transit system feel like a dystopian police state. I don’t understand how anyone thought this would create a positive welcoming atmosphere. I hate having my own transit authority constantly remind me that I’m there at the pleasure of the police.

But the problem is deeper. The Code of Conduct is too vague and not susceptible to equitable enforcement. Here’s something that the code of conduct says: “Use only G-rated words Using profanity or derogatory statements is not tolerated on buses or trains.” Neat idea! Wildly overbroad and probably illegal to enforce.

No derogatory statements? G-rated words??? Absurd. How many bus riders could this screw? Okay, now think about which ones will get targeted for enforcement, and which ones will escape police scrutiny. Yet Metro Transit believes, and is willing to announce, that the police can enforce this?

Their urging riders to treat one another with “respect, kindness, and inclusivity” is also vague and unenforceable. Yet police aren’t known for their recognition of nuance when it comes to exercising what they view as their authority to act.

Empowering the police to enforce a vague and overbroad Code of Conduct is inviting them to exercise considerable discretion and, effectively, to abuse the power of the state. Inevitably, discretionary enforcement and abuses land hardest and most frequently on minority populations, as Minneapolis has realized.

Here are some of the things said when Minneapolis repealed its “livability” laws about spitting and lurking:

Mayor Hodges: “These two ordinances are antiquated, unnecessary, and unfairly affect people of color in our community. It’s about time we got them off the books.”

Blong Yang: “It seems to be criminalizing certain types of thought in Minneapolis. Not actual crimes.”

Cam Gordon: “This isn’t a police problem. This isn’t an attorney problem. This isn’t a court problem. … This our problem. We need to own it. We need to look at the role we play in it. And we need to see how we can change it.”

You get the picture. It is basically guaranteed that police enforcement of the Metro Transit Code of Conduct is a return to the sort of “livability crimes” that result in selective enforcement and police harassment of minorities that Minneapolis is moving away from. That’s why it is so jarring to me to have this antiquated idea of police-enforced livability bused back in by Metro Transit administrators. They apparently haven’t heard about the disproportionate impact that police enforcement of vague, feel-good policies winds up having on minority communities.

I fully support the idea of promoting and encouraging the values of respect, kindness, and inclusivity, on transit, and elsewhere. But the threats of police involvement are over the top, and frankly seem intended to intimidate significant portions of our community that have legitimate reasons for antipathy toward police. Intimidation and the prospect of broad, unequally applied police discretion are neither inclusive nor respectful.

Minneapolis has rejected this kind of invitation to abuse of police discretion, unequal enforcement, and disproportionate impact. We should tell Metro Transit that their decision to explicitly bring this practice back to Minneapolis isn’t welcome.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/08/when-quality-of-life-initiatives-make-places-worse/feed/18Chart of the Day: Overnight Green Line Rider Trip Purposehttps://streets.mn/2019/05/07/chart-of-the-day-overnight-green-line-rider-trip-purpose/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/07/chart-of-the-day-overnight-green-line-rider-trip-purpose/#commentsTue, 07 May 2019 17:35:17 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79997You may have read the rumors that Metro Transit is going to cut overnight service on the Green Line, due in part to to too many people using the trains as shelter. It’s a tough situation, to say the least, pitting public transit against the basic human right to security and a roof over one’s head.

As of now, it seems like the cuts are happening, at least according to the latest .pdf presentation from the agency. As part of the decision process, Metro Transit did a survey of overnight riders, asking people on the train where and why they were traveling between 1am and 4am on three different nights.

A little more than half the people onboard agreed to take the survey, and you can see that a large percentage of them were using the train as shelter. (I imagine that many of the people who refused to answer were also in this category, but we do not know that.)

Fund additional data analysis to understand needs of people using transit as shelter (pending a Wilder Foundation contract)

Fund additional case managers to work with individuals to connect them to services and housing

Stay tuned to this developing story, or post your thoughts below.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/07/chart-of-the-day-overnight-green-line-rider-trip-purpose/feed/12National Links: Atlanta to Woonerf and the Importance of Shadehttps://streets.mn/2019/05/07/national-links-atlanta-to-woonerf-and-the-importance-of-shade/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/07/national-links-atlanta-to-woonerf-and-the-importance-of-shade/#respondTue, 07 May 2019 15:30:34 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79897Every day at The Overhead Wire we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the DC region. They are national links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

The Importance of Shade: Sam Bloch tells the story of shade in Los Angeles, which comes as a universal yet understated privilege in wealthier parts of the city. Bus shelters, for example, have mainly been installed in wealthier areas; shade-less bus stops marked by posts dot low-income neighborhoods instead. This inequity is amplified as heatwaves become more commonplace in the city. Low-income neighborhoods have responded by building their own makeshift shade shelters in yards and planting trees to adequately shield from the sun. Bloch also mentions Downtown’s Pershing Square, where shade was intentionally minimized in the park’s design to clear out “deviates and criminals.” Street trees and shady urban design should not be considered privileges. (Sam Bloch | Places Journal)

BRT’s Great Success in Mexico City: Bus Rapid Transit, known locally as Metrobús, has become a city staple, now moving 1.5 million riders daily. BRT first opened in the city along Avenida de los Insurgentes in 2005, and the system has since grown to seven lines. The system is especially convenient for the city’s working class residents, as a one-way fare costs only six pesos, or about thirty cents. Mexico City decided to build the system 20 years ago, citing congestion and severe air pollution. Metrobús utilizes low-emission buses that each have a capacity of 240 riders. Relative to the city’s metro system, building BRT costs 20 times less to similarly decrease pollution and serve as an alternative to driving. (Zeninjor Enwemeka | WBUR)

Atlanta Considers a Woonerf: For a two-mile stretch of Peachtree Street in downtown, Atlanta is proposing a Dutch “woonerf” or “shared space. The design would remove physical barriers between sidewalks and streets, most notably curbs, and give pedestrians freedom to roam. Drivers would still be allowed to travel through, but must do so slowly while constantly negotiating right-of-way with pedestrians. It may sound counter-intuitive, but great successful woonerf designs in Europe have demonstrated that reducing separation between drivers and pedestrians actually improves safety. The plan is still in the early stages, but the city is preparing to launch a feasibility study to create its “Time Square of the South.” (Angie Schmitt | Streetsblog USA)

A Geocode Is not an Address: In Puerto Rico, an outdated and dysfunctional addressing system hampers Hurricane Maria relief efforts in that thousands of FEMA aid applications cannont be processed because properties can’t be located. The lack of 911-compliant addresses also “makes it difficult for emergency responders to locate homes and businesses.” Part of the dilemma lies in historical Spanish naming conventions that cannot be properly inputted to databases in English. Updating Puerto Rico’s addressing system has been estimated to cost $200 million. Geocodes, unique codes that correspond to geographic coordinates, have been proposed as a cheaper alternative. Chris Mellon argues, however, that geocodes are not enough, as they erase a place’s identity and history. They serve an administrative purpose, but cannot provide a location in a cultural landscape as addresses do in both time and space. (Chris Mellon | Wired)

Quote of the Week

“I think that the availability of an on-demand car has made it easier for people to travel to areas of the city that they would not ordinarily have gone to if they had to go by subway or by taxi. So that these people who visit out of the way neighborhoods-usually where low-income people live-they are agents of gentrification.”

Sharon Zukin in ArchDaily discussing her belief that cars have accellerated gentrification.

This week on the podcast, Alexander Stahle talks about putting together a street design guide for Sweden.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/07/national-links-atlanta-to-woonerf-and-the-importance-of-shade/feed/0It’s Spring! Plant a Boulevard Gardenhttps://streets.mn/2019/05/07/its-spring-plant-a-boulevard-garden/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/07/its-spring-plant-a-boulevard-garden/#commentsTue, 07 May 2019 13:00:44 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79952Walking and bicycling through my neighborhood has given me a deeper appreciation of the many gardeners who work to add beauty and resiliency to our world. I started noticing the strips of curbside gardens, and occasionally stopped to chat with folks while they were out planting. I enjoyed watching the plants sprout, bloom, feed bees, and become decorated with snow as the year went by.

I spotted this bee while I was walking by a garden. (photo: Jenny Werness)

The boulevard strip along my street, despite having been sodded by the city only a couple years before, was a sad collection of browning grass and weeds. I did not want to perpetuate the fundamental environmental problem with American lawns (which require significant amounts of work, water, fossil fuels, and herbicides) to maintain a nearly artificial green carpet that provides no benefits to our native insects and animals. Transforming a useless patch of lawn to a garden seemed like a small climate-friendly step I could take, while also adding beauty to the streetside for neighbors to enjoy, provide habitat for animals and insects, and catch stormwater.

One year after planting, my boulevard garden begins to fill in (photo: Jenny Werness)

Originally I wanted a dedicated rain garden, but the friendly folks at Capital Region Watershed District suggested it wouldn’t be an ideal location due to the mature trees. I loved the look of rock gardens, but I wanted to include more native plants, insect host plants, and pollinator plants. I also required plants that would be able to survive this rough environment without watering or significant nurturing from us. The U of MN Extension, it turns out, has the perfect reference material: The Best Plants for 30 Tough Sites, edited by Mary Meyer, Deborah L. Brown, and Mike Zins. They have recommendations for perennials and small trees for boulevard gardens, as well as a wealth of other advice on things like dry soil, river banks, shady areas, deer resistant plants.

With these constraints, I began planning a garden primarily composed of hardy native and pollinator perennials, with a bunch of my favorite yard rocks relocated to the boulevard.

Preparing the site and planting

There are many ways to start a garden from a patch of grass, including soil solarizing or smothering, both of which are fairly easy and require no special equipment or hard labor. However, I wanted to decrease the final height of the garden so that water would drain into it rather than run off into the street, so I had to get the grass removed instead. After calling Gopher State One to get the utility locations marked, I hired a neighbor who manually cut up and removed all the turf. He gave me some great advice on gardening, and he regularly stops by to chat about my garden as he’s out and about. Other neighbors stopped by to reuse the “sod” in their own yards or compost piles.

Work in progress, with a tarp-covered sod pile (photo: Jenny Werness)

My partner Kyle and I began acquiring plants, starting in our own yard, and then in our neighborhood. I scattered some annual flower seeds in the new garden, and then I picked out my perennials that needed dividing (including the ever-present sedum and hostas). We relocated some, and then took the rest to the Mac-Groveland Plant Share to exchange for other suitable plants, including a gorgeous pink phlox. I asked my neighborhood’s Buy Nothing Project group if anyone had plants to share, and was gifted with some lovely lilies. A friend from work brought me irises he’d split from his garden, complete with labels and photo references of each type. After letting these plants establish themselves, I consulted my list and we went to Highland Nursery for some of the hardy natives I hadn’t yet found.

As the plants grew and bloomed, we often sat on the retaining wall and watched as they attracted bees and butterflies, even occasional birds. We put out a water bowl for the dogs. My sister brought me some nice big rocks to add to the not-yet-filled-in spots, and made me a series of seasonally-changing fairy garden decorations. Neighbors walking by stopped to chat about the garden, just as I’d been doing around the city. Planting the garden was, in many ways, a joint project with our community, and I am very thankful.

Later that fall, the city decided that one of our boulevard trees needed to be removed, as it had developed a deep split. It was sad to lose the tree, and also to lose some of the plants in that area as they ground out the stump. But it gave us the opportunity to plant a new tree, chosen from a list provided by staff at the City of Saint Paul Forestry Department. The city forestry department would have replanted eventually, according to their planting rotation, but we didn’t want to wait that long.

I made a spreadsheet of our options, narrowed the list to a top three with the input of our immediate neighbors, and we went to buy a tree. We decided on a hackberry (celtis occidentalis), which is recommended by the U of MN Extension as tolerant of tough boulevard conditions.

Plant hardiness indicates which plants are most likely to thrive. The map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature, divided into 10-degree Fahrenheit zones.

The Minnesota DNR has charts of the average dates of last freeze (and average dates of first freeze). Although accurate long-range forecasts of freeze dates remain beyond the reach of science, charts suggest that if you wait until mid-May to get planting, you’ll probably be OK if you live in central or southern Minnesota.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/06/map-monday-minnesota-plant-hardiness-zones/feed/5What’s in a Bicycle?https://streets.mn/2019/05/06/whats-in-a-bicycle/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/06/whats-in-a-bicycle/#commentsMon, 06 May 2019 14:30:42 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79858I recently purchased my first-ever Brand New Bike. This is a really big deal for me!

The Surly PackRat. A modern bicycle inspired by the practice of Randonneuring. “Designed to get you where you need to go with your belongings on a front rack.”[Click image to read blog post]

Despite always choosing The Bicycle as my primary mode of transportation, I had also been very frugal (cheap) and preferred to tinker with the frames and components I had in my parents’ garage. Over those years — with a few tools I bought and inherited along the way, as well as the invaluable writings on SheldonBrown.com — I taught myself how to adjust derailleurs, remove cranks, adapt the length of chains, etc. And I thought I would be forever happy buying inexpensive bikes from Craigslist and adapting them to my liking — typically fixed-gear/single-speed conversions, back when it was cool.

Current conditions in author’s basement: Some things never change.I was never good at homework, but at least I had a healthy hobby!

At a certain age, I decided to buy a track bike, a “real fixie,” if you will. After very little research — hype is one hell of a drug — I bought a Surly Steamroller from Craigslist. I thought it was pretty pricey for being used and having only one gear, but I wanted it so I could fit in, and it was a game changer. It has turned into my year-round, all-weather workhorse:

It got me from south Minneapolis to Mounds View and back when I worked there.

It got me countless miles in and around Chicago when I lived there.

And it has never let me down (though literally the day before writing this post, I broke a spoke, and the wheel is now in repair).

Why get a new bike?

Upon recognizing I wasn’t getting younger, I figured my knees could use some variation every once in a while. During a conversation with a co-worker I mentioned possibly, maybe, perhaps shelling out for a new ride, and he informed me that our health insurance plan offers a discount at Erik’s Bike Shop and an additional discount from the Raleigh and DiamondBack brands. (You may have these perks too; it takes only a quick internet search).

Source: https://www.pedalroom.com/bike/surly-creamrolla-4656

Learning this really got the gears turning in my head. I browsed online catalogs and remembered a bike that had been on my radar for a number of years: the Surly CrossCheck. I had frequently heard it referred to as “the most versatile, least expensive steel-frame bike on the market,” so I rode to my Local Bike Shop/Surly Dealer to try it out.

Spoiler: It felt like I was driving a bus. I didn’t like it, not at all! I know quite a few people who swear by the CrossCheck, just as I swear by my Steamroller. This experience reinforced that not all bikes are the same. It was a great learning experience.

Dreams shattered, I needed a pick-me-up, so I returned to the store and let my magnificent salesperson (thanks, Jody!) run their spiel about the PackRat. They encouraged me to take it for a spin, no strings attached, and I am so glad I did.

That test ride took me to places of happiness I didn’t know were still possible as an Adult Millennial. My spouse (and riding partner) kept commenting how natural and comfortable I looked while riding — and how I was wearing my “high beams” (our household term for bliss).

I wasn’t expecting a bike I had never heard of to sweep me off my feet, especially if I was going to pay full price. (Full disclosure: It was last year’s model, and I was offered 10 percent off.) But there I was, grinning from ear to ear, trying to figure out if this was an impulse buy or if I was actually feeling the jitters of a purchase worth making.

I decided to think about it for a week. After all, I hadn’t made it to the shop that offers the insurance discount.
Turns out, Erik’s didn’t have anything in stock that was my size, and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of ordering a bike online just to take a test ride.

I knew what I was getting, and I couldn’t be happier.

Now we’re one month in. I have carried many loads of groceries, made a few runs to the liquor store (heaviest load, about 25 pounds), and I have ridden over 100 miles. I still have zero buyer’s regret, and I don’t miss my backpack (and corresponding wet back) one bit.

So, what’s in a bicycle?

Taken literally, it is mostly steel, some rubber, grease and a little bit of oil.

But, when taken in abstract, as a vehicle that weighs 29 pounds and (god forbid) can be disassembled to fit in the backseat of a car, the bicycle is an extremely versatile instrument of freedom, recreation, independence and joy.

Ride on.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/06/whats-in-a-bicycle/feed/2Sunday Summary – May 5, 2019https://streets.mn/2019/05/05/sunday-summary-may-5-2019/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/05/sunday-summary-may-5-2019/#respondSun, 05 May 2019 13:00:43 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79907Welcome to May! Go outside! Go to what might be the last Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater May Day Parade in Powderhorn Park. Ride your bike (it’s Bike Month!)!

Policy problems and solutions

Janne Flisrand follows her TIF explainer post last week with How TIF Can Solve a Market Failure in Minneapolis. This defense of TIF shows how Minneapolis has used this financing tool to kickstart investment noting, “The fastest-growing neighborhoods in Minneapolis were sparked by TIF investments. The new development in these neighborhoods since 2003 pays millions in real estate taxes every year, and that reduces the amount of the City’s budget that must be covered by folks who live elsewhere in Minneapolis.”

John Edwards reported on the Richfield Planning Commission discussion of parking in Richfield Considers Lowering Parking Minimums. The change was recommended by city planning staff, but “On Monday April 22, the Richfield Planning Commission split 3-3 on a recommendation by planning staff to reduce parking minimums in mixed use zoning districts. In areas near transit, the plan would reduce minimum requirements from 1.5 to one space per unit. Outside of areas with high frequency transit, parking minimums would be made consistent with existing rules in high-density zoning districts — 1.25 spaces per unit.” The discussion among planning commissioners is predictable for streets.mn readers.

The St. Paul Skyway: Public Space or Scrutinized Lobby? is another post from the Saint Paul Field Guide to Public Spaces from Macalester College geography students in Fall 2018 (See introduction here); this post was written by Luke Sageser. Contrasting the commuting and lunch time activity with the after hours emptiness and perceived security risks, “Making the skyway a more consistently animated and vibrant place would be good for its health as a public space. There is also local interest for it, too. The apartment residents I spoke with formed their defense group did so in part because they refused to give up their ability to safely use the space after hours.”

Getting around

Matt Eckholm makes A Tree Proposal Kenilworth Should Love. The Southwest LRT is planned to go through Kenilworth and take out 1300 trees, but rather than choosing trees or trains, “I think we can have our cake and eat it too. In order to replace the loss of the sanctity of the Kenilworth wooded area and the trees that called the corridor home, let’s close Cedar Lake Parkway to vehicle traffic, rip up the road, and start planting trees for a future natural respite from our city. Without the automobile traffic spoiling the corridor in order to save a few minutes on their commute, I think we could set the stage for a wonderful new Minneapolis amenity in the next few decades, and provide a way for Kenilworth to productively promote rewilding in their area without it coming at the cost of regional transit improvements.”

Conrad Zbikowski has two posts this week which look at two different sorts of getting around. First, he looks at the IPOs of Lyft and Uber to write As Lyft and Uber Go Public, the Future of Mobility Remains Up for Grabs. Both companies are currently running big losses as they expand quickly with cheap prices, “Will the discounts continue, or will one operator take control and become profitable? Billions of dollars in investment is riding on the answer to that question. It will hinge on whether companies like Uber can continue to burn billions of dollars in investor money to tick up their market share quarter by quarter. If the money runs out, we could be set for a competitive marketplace among huge devaluations.” In his second post, he considers The Future of West River Parkway with interviews with Park Board Commissioners and highlights of problem areas and possible improvements (with input from Twitter followers).

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/05/sunday-summary-may-5-2019/feed/0Walking All the Streets of Northern Linden Hillshttps://streets.mn/2019/05/03/walking-all-the-streets-of-northern-linden-hills/
Fri, 03 May 2019 17:00:03 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79502Southwest Minneapolis’s Linden Hills neighborhood spans from 36th to 47th Street, north to south, though the northern two blocks are largely missing, thanks to the Minikahda Club and Bde Maka Ska. In the route map, the full neighborhood is shown with a light blue tint, and the route for this first day is shown with the blue, red, and purple lines. As you can see, this route includes those limited northern blocks, extending just a bit further south to 39th Street.

The blue portions of the path are those I walked just once—a main loop starting and ending at 39th Street West and Sheridan Avenue South together with two subsidiary one-block loops from Chowen to Drew Avenue and Ewing to France Avenue, the western border of the neighborhood and city. The red portions are forward-and-back spurs. I also walked the purple connectors between the loops forward and later back, just not immediately.

I initially headed north on Sheridan Avenue, which is the easternmost avenue in the area Louis Menageplatted in 1883 as Cottage City. The basic lot size is only 25 feet wide to encourage affordable cottages, though many properties span more than one lot. Nor are the larger sizes entirely a result of recent rebuilding, as illustrated by a side-by-side pair of houses I saw just north of 39th Street, one built in 2016 and the other in 1904. Each occupies a 50-foot double lot.

3836 Sheridan Ave. S. (2016)

3830 Sheridan Ave. S. (1904)

Further north in that block, though, I photographed an example of a house built only 18-feet wide so that it has a few feet of clearance on each side within a 25-foot lot.

3825 Sheridan Ave. S. (1905)

Before the walk was over, I would see plenty of houses also from the 1920s and 1950s, decades that are well represented city-wide. The most distinctive aspect of this area, though, may be the number of modern houses, including two more I photographed on the 3800 block of Sheridan Avenue. Immediately afterward and to the east of there, I saw one that was more postmodern.

3817 Sheridan Ave. S. (2015)

3811 Sheridan Ave. S. (2007)

3830 West Calhoun Pkwy. (1988)

“Modern” does not mean recent. Although the three preceding examples are from the 21st century, and although that century accounts (together with the 1980s) for most of the modern houses I saw in the remainder of the walk, the modernist movement dates back well into the 20th century. And so I was pleased to see the other corner of Sheridan Avenue’s intersection with the parkway occupied by a striking modern house from the 1950s, a decade otherwise represented primarily by hip-roofed ranch houses and duplexes. The recently-added sunroom is unobtrusive enough to leave the original design clearly visible.

3790 West Calhoun Pkwy. (1957; sunroom 2012)

Before turning back south on Upton Avenue, I continued along the parkway in a spur as far as Vincent Avenue. The first two houses fit the mold of recently-constructed modern designs, but the third is more enigmatic—it seems to be a remodeled older structure, but the building permit index doesn’t make the original date clear. At the end of the block is a relatively recent (2000) house in a more traditional style—though I photographed it not for that reason, but to capture the footprints Bigfoot had left when cutting across the snowy lawn.

3750, 3748, and 3746 West Calhoun Pkwy. (2015, 2014, and ?)

3742 West Calhoun Pkwy. (2000)

Turning south on Upton, I immediately paused to photograph another non-house view, this one less ephemeral than the footprints: a colorful bottle tree. In the second block, another house from the 1950s interested me. This one began life as one of the aforementioned hip-roofed ranch houses but gained a more modern look, as well as a partial second story, in a recent remodel.

Bottle Tree at 3708 Upton Ave. S.

3836 and 3832 Upton Ave. S. (1955, remodeled 2017; 1931)

Some more intact examples of the hip-roofed ranch-house style included an attached (“townhouse”) pair on Washburn and some single-family houses on Xerxes.

3804–3800 Washburn Ave. S. (1952 townhouses)

3807 Xerxes Ave. S. (1958)

Further north on Xerxes, I spotted a more extreme example of the 25-foot “cottage” lots being subverted—not merely a double lot, but a quintuple one. (And again, this isn’t a new phenomenon but rather dates to the 1920s.)

3719 Xerxes Ave. S. (1929)

Once I reached the northern end of this segment of Xerxes, I didn’t turn onto the parkway. (I had already walked past here on a long parkway spur from Washburn.) Instead, I turned a sharper left onto a park path that cuts diagonally through the Southwest Lake Calhoun Wetland to York Avenue. The ponds and their banks were rendered unsightly by some restoration work underway, but I still enjoyed looking back after crossing the pedestrian bridge. The still pond provided reflections of the bridge and the trees on the far side, beyond which the downtown skyline is just visible across Bde Maka Ska.

Southwest Lake Calhoun Wetland Bridge (1995)

After reaching 39th Street on York, I finally got to walk the one and only full-length hairpin from 39th to 36th and back, namely Zenith and Abbott Avenues. Along the way, I continued to note houses of varying decades and styles.

3847 Zenith Ave. S. (1928)

3812 and 3800 Zenith Ave. S. (1981 and 1922)

3600 Zenith Ave. S. (2017)

3720 Abbott Ave. S. (1986)

The western edge of the neighborhood interested me for the number of styles of duplex represented there. For example, in addition to the typical ranch-house style that has a separate door for each unit (akin to the townhouses on Washburn), I spotted some 1950s ranch-house duplexes with a single central door. (I’m used to the single central door on 1930s cottage-style duplexes.) Nor were ranch houses the only style of duplexes in the 1950s—just down the street are some two-story duplexes of the same age.

3820–3816 Ewing Ave. S. (1954 duplex)

3842–3840 Ewing Ave. S. (1954 duplex)

3809–3811 and 3813–3815 France Ave. S. (1946 duplexes)

Returning eastward on 38th Street from France Avenue to Thomas Avenue, I passed by the side of a duplex (or former duplex) on the northeastern corner with Vincent Avenue. I hadn’t paid it much attention when walking by its front face; aside from the recently refreshed exterior, it looked much like other ranch house duplexes. However, from 38th Street one can see that the southern unit is attached to a two-story addition in the back. I haven’t tracked down the relevant building permit, but while looking for it I noticed that the building was converted from a multi-unit structure to townhouses (attached single-family homes) in the early 21st century. The difference between a duplex or other multi-unit structure and attached houses is whether the separating wall extends through the attic, and in this case an extra fire wall was added there.

3715–3717 Vincent Ave. S., from 38th St. W. (1950)

Because 38th Street tees at Thomas Avenue, I wasn’t able to take it all the way back to my starting point on Sheridan. Instead, I first turned north in a spur to the parkway, then south to finish the loop on 39th Street. The spur was interesting for a pair of houses set so closely together that their garages have scarcely any space between them. On the left of the photo, the house numbered as 3766 West Calhoun Parkway is one of the oldest in the area, built at some indeterminate point prior to 1899 and subsequently expanded. The gambrel-roofed house on the right of the photo is somewhat more recent, begun in 1901.

3766 West Calhoun Pkwy. and 3715 Thomas Ave. S.

The old house has an old retaining wall. Or rather, it has a recent retaining wall (replacing a predecessor) that appears to have been constructed using stones salvaged from an old building. My curiosity was particularly piqued by the occasional recesses, such as in the second photo. I’m wondering what was set into them in the stones’ original application.

Retaining Wall on Thomas Ave. S. at 3766 West Calhoun Pkwy. (1999)

Detail of Retaining Wall on Thomas Ave. S.

Continuing further south on Thomas Avenue, I passed a pair of more cottage-like houses from the early-20th-century. Indeed, the one on the right is situated on a regulation 25-foot lot, though the one on the left is granted a bit more elbow room through the use of a 40-foot lot. (Five of these 40-foot lots replace what would have been eight 25-foot lots.)

3823 and 3825 Thomas Ave. S. (1906 and 1905)

Across the street is a dramatic house from the 1980s, a playful postmodern combination of traditional and modern elements. For example, the three rectangular windows over the main entry are evocative of a Palladian window, and the use of pitched roofs is likewise traditional. Yet the use of strong, cleanly angular shapes is modern.

3828 Thomas Ave. S. (1987)

Finally, as I got ready to take the final turn onto 39th Street, I saw a different kind of combination of old and new. The house at 3841 Thomas Avenue South is one of the original generation of Cottage City cottages, dating from 1912. The facade has been modernized in a way that is respectful of the history but not beholden to it. The gracefully arced slats on the screen door are the central point of interest. Their curves are echoed in the handrail, while the spacing of the slats is echoed in the porch gable.

3841 Thomas Ave. S. (1912)

Editor’s Note: Max Hailperin is walking each of Minneapolis’ 87 neighborhoods, in alphabetical order. He chronicles his adventures at allofminneapolis.com, where the original version of this article was published April 2, 2019. We’re sharing them here at streets.mn.

]]>How TIF Can Solve a Market Failure in Minneapolishttps://streets.mn/2019/05/02/how-tif-can-solve-a-market-failure-in-minneapolis/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/02/how-tif-can-solve-a-market-failure-in-minneapolis/#commentsThu, 02 May 2019 14:30:55 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79723I wrote an earlier post that explains what TIF is and how it works. Click through and read it here.

In any community, we put things we want in plans. We want good jobs for the people who live here. We want homes people can afford to rent and buy. We want polluted land cleaned up. We want abandoned land to host homes and businesses. We want underutilized land to be better used. We want more landowners to pay taxes, to spread the costs of running our City among more people.

If those spaces stay polluted or abandoned, that’s a problem: we aren’t getting the homes we need in this housing shortage, or jobs for residents, or more tax income.

Sometimes, a community has a spot that is perfect for new homes and/or businesses, but nothing gets built. Why not? Because of a market failure: the people who would build these new homes and businesses can’t convince lenders to lend them the money to build it.

Being lenders, they are very cautious and use increasingly formulaic tools to predict which projects are guaranteed to make a certain rate of return. If a given project doesn’t have another successful comparable project nearby to point to, it doesn’t matter to the lenders that it’s on an LRT line or in a great neighborhood. They keep to their narrow formulas and refuse to lend. And the underused land stays underused.

These plans are a lot like my garden. I’m planning carrots and radishes on one side, tomatoes and basil in the sun over here around those raspberries. But just drawing my plan on paper isn’t going to make it grow. I need to plant seeds and water them.

In cities, changing the status quo sometimes requires a nudge. Cities need their own watering can.

Most tools come with lots of strings, inflexible regulations, and restrictions, and one flexible tool cities have is Tax Increment Financing (TIF). Like anything, it can be misused, but leaving this watering can in the tool shed creates its own problems, too. It’s a powerful tool when it’s deployed well.

How has Minneapolis used TIF in the past?

Looking over past TIF projects, I noticed a pattern. Check out this list:

In my explainer post, I outlined four uses. The first is an unrepeatable outlier, and the second is for big and speculative downtown projects. (That’s a use that many argue was a problem — see also Block E — and it’s a use we’ve stopped.) The fourth use is widely supported: providing an affordable housing subsidy to buy down the cost of rents for people with limited incomes.

This list looks like the third use, where Minneapolis uses TIF to spur the building of market-rate homes in the hottest neighborhoods in the city, and most of these projects do not include affordable homes. Reviewing the dates, though, every one of these districts happened before the neighborhood took off. With a few catalytic projects, Minneapolis demonstrated that these neighborhoods were good investments. We pulled out our watering can, and it worked: the soil was fertile, there was plenty of sunshine, but we needed TIF to keep the seeds moist until the roots grew and the rain was enough.

Some neighborhoods needed three or four TIF-supported projects to correct the market failure and get lenders to invest in projects without any subsidy. In other areas like Elliot Park and the Midtown Greenway west of Nicollet, one or two projects was all it took to prove the viability of the market and for people to build hundreds of new homes.

Why is this type of subsidy so important? Because in areas that haven’t seen much development for decades, investors are understandably cautious. Having a couple nearby examples of developments that succeeded goes a long way towards demonstrating that if you build it, people will move in.

Consider the Mill District. As difficult as it might be to imagine today, just two decades ago the Mill District consisted of dozens of acres of parking with some abandoned mill buildings and unused rail yards. The North Loop was similar, but with a few more vacant buildings and not quite as many parking lots. By today’s standards the TIF investments in these neighborhoods from 1998-2003 were very generous. However, in comparison to the private, unsubsidized development that followed, the TIF-supported projects in the Mill District and the North Loop are a small fraction of the recent development. By any measure, the investment in those early projects was effective and significantly boosted the City’s overall tax base.

Perhaps the most striking example here is the Midtown Greenway corridor. West of Nicollet, one single TIF-supported project was enough to spark redevelopment of several parcels that had been vacant or underutilized for decades.

Once these neighborhoods got started, projects could get built without help from the City. Land that was mostly abandoned or underutilized in the heart of the city is now supporting neighborhoods with jobs, businesses, and thousands of new homes. We didn’t have to build all-new infrastructure and sewers for those projects – the supporting infrastructure has been there for more than a century. As a result we’ve got loads of help paying to maintain old streets and sewers throughout Minneapolis, paying into the school district, and supporting all of our other shared needs.

In those areas, we put our watering can back in the shed, because the rain has started to fall.But in other parts of town, we haven’t ever even taken the watering can out of the shed.

How should citizens feel about TIF?

TIF is powerful, when deployed strategically.

Our neighbors, our city’s staff, and our city’s leaders know our city well. We know that there are good projects in great neighborhoods that can’t get financing because there hasn’t been local development in decades. The locations may be well-served by transit and within walking-distance of many amenities. Still, these areas lack the “proof of market” that lenders (and therefore the people building homes and businesses) rely on. In the past, the City strategically used TIF to spur development in an area, and then stepped back to let developers and lenders continue without public assistance. Helping neighborhoods overcome market challenges — that’s what TIF is supposed to do.

Today, we know there are places people want to live and work, places undermined by historic redlining and present-day effects of past segregationist policies. Places like 44th and Victory, West Broadway, Seward, Corcoran, parts of Northeast, and many more. TIF can show that investment makes sense in every corner of Minneapolis. TIF can end the racial-covenant shaped, redlining-driven market disinvestment in swaths of our city. But the effect of current practice, where Minneapolis limits TIF to affordable homes mostly located in lower-income neighborhoods, reinforces income and race segregation in our city.

You can see that pattern in this map, with yellow subsidized apartments are in historically redlined areas, and blue market apartments are in TIF-kick-started neighborhoods.

How should property taxpayers feel about TIF?

Never using TIF raises taxpayers bills. Our 1,500 miles of streets and alleys, and 1,380 miles of sewer tunnels need the same amount of paving and sweeping and plowing and rebuilding whether we have 370,000 or 450,000 people sharing the cost.

The tax increment of zero is zero. Ending the use of TIF doesn’t help us fund maintenance of aging streets or sewers or stormwater drains. It just forces those of us who are here to shoulder all the costs. TIF demonstrated that there’s a market for homes in and around downtown neighborhoods that experienced disinvestment for decades. As a result, we’ve seen a 400% increase in people living downtown and paying property taxes.

State law doesn’t preclude using TIF for making almost-feasible projects feasible; in fact that’s the whole point of the tool. But since 2013 Minneapolis has adopted a practice of using the tool much less than in the past. On the surface, that recent practice of rarely using TIF might appear fiscally prudent, but it isn’t. The fastest-growing neighborhoods in Minneapolis were sparked by TIF investments. The new development in these neighborhoods since 2003 pays millions in real estate taxes every year, and that reduces the amount of the City’s budget that must be covered by folks who live elsewhere in Minneapolis.

I'm thinking about tax increments. $1.2m value in 2012 when it was an empty lot. $44m value in 2018 and contributing $800,533 in property taxes.

When one new, large apartment building adds over $800,000 in property taxes, that’s an addition taxpayers want. If we do it enough, we can fund affordable homes, housing vouchers, or whatever we as a city need.

Blocking TIF investments has the biggest tax penalty for people paying property taxes in the most expensive parts of the city. That’s also where the taxes are highest. Keeping the number of taxpayers down, keeping taxes in other parts of the city down, that simply shifts the tax burden onto the wealthiest neighborhoods. That’s not good for those folks.

Tax base by city council ward (map credit Scott Shaffer)

So what should we do?

No gardener would use a watering can on saturated soil, or even wet soil. It’s too much lugging, too much time, pointless, and expensive (in labor and water). No gardener would plan for a garden and then hope it would grow without putting in some work, either.

Minneapolis needs to revisit our TIF policy – and practice – to provide clear guidance as to when and where we use it. Let’s define our standards for community support and minimum community benefits for using TIF. Let’s declare what conditions show continued lender disinvestment that justifies TIF to overcome that history. Let’s clarify when affordability is an absolute requirement. Current priorities to build for-sale housing and address environmental pollution could be supported by TIF, with or without affordable housing, depending on the site.

In the comments, share your recommendations. What conditions are necessary? What benefits do we require? What uses are prohibited? How do these recommendations link to our comprehensive plan?

Avoiding TIF means we all lose. We lose if we want nice things in our neighborhoods. We lose if we’re renting or homeowning taxpayers (especially in high-value neighborhoods). We lose if we want affordable housing. It’s time for Minneapolis to have a thoughtful discussion about how we want to invest TIF funds to achieve the goals adopted as part of Minneapolis 2040, to address our affordable housing shortage, to eliminate racial disparities, and to build climate change resilience.

Let’s meet at Greenway and 4th Ave S at 11:00am. We’ll get started on our way by 11:10 or 11:15, so if you’re arriving after that time, look for a group cleaning up nearby – it’s probably us.

Wear close-toed shoes and comfortable clothing.

We’ll provide supplies, but feel free to bring your own gloves.

After the clean-up, all are invited to Midtown Global Market for a casual meet-up beginning at 1:30pm. We’ll get a spot on the patio at Eastlake Craft Brewery if we’re lucky.

Finally, this is a weather-dependent event, so in the small chance of rain on Saturday morning, we’ll call off the event by posting here on streets.mn and on the Facebook event by 10:00am.

For added fun, we will incorporate an optional Scavenger Hunt during the clean-up. We at streets.mn are looking forward to seeing you this weekend!

]]>Chart of the Day: Minnesotans Behind Barshttps://streets.mn/2019/05/01/chart-of-the-day-minnesotans-behind-bars/
Wed, 01 May 2019 19:00:21 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79843As local and national conversations occur about policing, racial disparities in the justice system, and the rights of felons to vote, today’s chart focuses on the number of incarcerated Minnesotans. Via the Prison Policy Initiative, the following chart represents the 21,000 people in Minnesota’s jail and prison facilities in 2018:

Additional charts are available from the source, including information about growth of inmate population due to pre-trial policies, as well as incarceration rates by ethnicity.

]]>Richfield Considers Lowering Parking Minimumshttps://streets.mn/2019/05/01/richfield-considers-lowering-parking-minimums/
https://streets.mn/2019/05/01/richfield-considers-lowering-parking-minimums/#commentsWed, 01 May 2019 14:00:49 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79749On Monday April 22, the Richfield Planning Commission split 3-3 on a recommendation by planning staff to reduce parking minimums in mixed use zoning districts. In areas near transit, the plan would reduce minimum requirements from 1.5 to one space per unit. Outside of areas with high frequency transit, parking minimums would be made consistent with existing rules in high-density zoning districts — 1.25 spaces per unit.

The proposal goes forward to the Richfield City Council, where it will be considered without a recommendation from the Planning Commission.

Richfield city planner Matt Brillhart told commissioners that approved apartment projects within the last two years had mostly been within the 1.25 to 1.3 range, with the exception of a building consisting mostly of studios that included one parking space per apartment.

Commissioner Sean Hayford Oleary — referencing the fact that Minneapolis eliminated parking minimums entirely in the recently adopted 2040 plan — said the reduction they were considering was still “a much higher number than what Minneapolis requires just a few blocks north of where many of these apartment buildings are.”

Commissioner Peter Lavin responded, “We’re not Minneapolis.”

Lavin argued for maintaining the commission’s ability to judge parking requirements on a case by case basis for each proposed development. Earlier in the meeting he voted against allowing a bubble tea cafe to open with 13 parking spaces — two spaces under the 15-space minimum.

Brillhart, the planner, pointed out that most new residential parking in Richfield is covered, and in cases where it’s not, they have dedicated space for snow storage. In cases where commercial development has been built at the minimum requirement, it’s specifically prohibited to store snow on site.

Rudolph called the idea of a residential parking minimum reduction a “nightmare.” He delivered a series of parking anecdotes throughout the meeting, which were called into question by a skeptical Commissioner Susan Rosenberg.

Rudolph: “I see it every day. You can drive by my house. You can drive by the new developments…”

Rosenberg: “You see people circling the parking lots not finding a place to park?”

Rudolph: “The parking lots are full.”

Rosenberg: “Everyday?”

Rudolph: “People are parking on the streets. Yes.”

Rosenberg: “Mhmm.”

“In my experience living in Richfield, we do have vast amounts of parking space,” Said Commission Chair Allysen Hoberg. “It does behoove Richfield to look at our parking requirements.”

Brillhart explained the justification for his staff recommendation:

“Richfield’s best transit days are ahead of it. We don’t have too many high frequency transit lines operating today. That’s going to change within about three years. The D Line will be running on Portland Avenue offering rapid transit service. The Orange Line will be running on 35W, stopping at 66th Street and 76th Street, offering high frequency transit between here and downtown.

“The zoning code is not looking backward at the past, it’s looking forward. The average household size is smaller than ever. Vehicle ownership rates are steady or dropping. Not every household in Richfield owns a vehicle.”

One thing unaddressed at Monday’s meeting is the sheer cost of parking. It’s expensive, especially when it’s structured. In 2015, a Minneapolis developer told the Star Tribune that the cost of underground parking is $25,000 per stall, plus maintenance, taxes, and insurance. This cost affects what sorts of buildings are possible and the price people pay to live there.

The proposed parking minimum reduction was one piece of a package of recommendations from Richfield planning staff intended to “address inconsistencies” and “make other adjustments based on lessons learned from recent and approved development projects.” The other proposed changes, mostly related to setbacks and permitted uses, were passed by the Planning Commission without controversy.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/05/01/richfield-considers-lowering-parking-minimums/feed/9A Tree Proposal Kenilworth Should Lovehttps://streets.mn/2019/04/30/a-tree-proposal-kenilworth-should-love/
https://streets.mn/2019/04/30/a-tree-proposal-kenilworth-should-love/#commentsTue, 30 Apr 2019 15:30:13 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79696Hey, do you remember a couple of years ago when that budget-Pixar animation company made a feature-length adaptation of The Lorax? Only it watered down the message of one of Dr. Seuss’ most depressing and dire tales about the inevitable result of unadulterated greed into “You can still consume things, but make sure they’re #green!” The one that came complete with product tie-ins for IHOP and a “Truffula Tree friendly” Mazda CX-5?

But wait! I’m not just going to drop an opinion and leave, I’m actually here to offer a solution. You see, I can’t make the assumption that the Cedar-Isles-Dean Neighborhood Association is acting in bad faith. Kenilworth is a neat example of taking an area that was once a rail yard and turning it into an urban oasis. The fact that we’re running the SWLRT through it is a decision that, while we’re stuck with it now, could have gone a different way if FTA transit requirements for funding had counted existing transit riders when considering projects for funding. So losing 1300 trees and a quiet respite in our city is something we shouldn’t take lightly.

Having said that, if we are going to take our commitments to stop climate change seriously, we need to expand our light rail system as soon as possible. Better and faster transit to our suburbs is especially important, given they developed in a post-streetcar reality, and the sort of dense transit-oriented developments we want to see in the future require a high-quality transit system in order to work. Stopping Southwest Light Rail over Kenilworth at this point is literally missing the forest for the trees.

I mean, it’s staring us right in the face. If we reclaim that roadway space, we’d have more than enough room to plant replacements for 1300 trees. Probably far more, even. It would turn that section of the Grand Rounds into a tranquil forest trail along Cedar Lake, especially once all those Land Rovers and Beamers aren’t able to use it as a substitute for the freeway anymore. It would be an incredible reclamation of natural space in our city, all for the cost of ripping up one road.

As far as I can tell, the road is entirely superfluous to the neighborhood. Traffic can be rerouted down Cedar Lake Road to France via Ewing. Given the size of Ewing and France, and that their exit onto Minnetonka is far more suitable for the traffic than Dean Parkway, it almost seems like this was the plan all along, and that drivers never should have been using Cedar Lake Parkway as a bypass in the first place. Of course, this route would be all but useless to Kenilworth residents, since they’d have to venture almost to St. Louis Park and backtrack through a busy part of Lake Street in order to use the Grand Rounds system as a traffic cheat code. But without traffic lanes, the trail should revert to a quieter area in general, adding to the atmosphere of the reforested North Cedar Lake Trail, which I’m sure they’d agree is way more beneficial to their community.

From my Google Maps surveying of the area, most of the homes that connect to Cedar Lake Road only do so as a secondary approach, either as a walkout to the lake or alternate driveway. In other words, a majority of those who have homes adjacent to the parkway wouldn’t be negatively affected. And if I missed a few… well, Cedar-Isles-Dean Neighborhood Association is willing to sacrifice the benefits Southwest Light Rail would bring to thousands of area residents, so I’m comfortable sacrificing the convenience of a handful of this area’s residents in order to make this a reality. If Kenilworth’s residents love trees and quiet spaces as much as I think they might, they would also agree this is a noble tradeoff.

In conclusion, I think we can have our cake and eat it too. In order to replace the loss of the sanctity of the Kenilworth wooded area and the trees that called the corridor home, let’s close Cedar Lake Parkway to vehicle traffic, rip up the road, and start planting trees for a future natural respite from our city. Without the automobile traffic spoiling the corridor in order to save a few minutes on their commute, I think we could set the stage for a wonderful new Minneapolis amenity in the next few decades, and provide a way for Kenilworth to productively promote rewilding in their area without it coming at the cost of regional transit improvements.

And if this article appears like a Swiftian modest proposal, let me assure you that I fully believe what I’m writing here. It would be an unironic net win for Minneapolis if this proposal became a reality. So I look forward to hearing from the Cedar-Isles-Dean Neighborhood Association about my idea, and how they plan to use their influence in order to help make it a reality.

Included on page 3 of Uber’s prospectus was estimated market share in the ride share sector. Uber is a global company, with operations or stakes in 63 countries on six continents. In the U.S. and Canada, Uber estimates that it has 65% of the ride share market, closing in on a monopoly.

That near-monopoly power is the reason why Uber is reported to be valued at $100 billion, while U.S. rival Lyft — which went public on March 29 and closed that day at a $29.5 billion valuation — is currently valued at around $17.4 billion.

The feedback loop of creating a monopoly that has profits. Chart: Uber prospectus

Uber elaborated on its strategy for improving market share and moving towards profitability. Page 8 reads, “Our strategy is to create the largest network in each market so that we can have the greatest liquidity network effect, which we believe leads to a margin advantage.” The prospectus goes on to discuss Uber’s well-known practices of giving signing incentives to drivers and discounts to riders and Uber Eats users to boost its user base and create a feeback loop of increasing market share and profitability.

One issue, however, is that those incentives are burning up cash while user growth is slowing. At the end of 2016, Uber’s user base was growing at an astonishing rate of 36% quarter-to-quarter. After majorscandals led to a change of leadership, user growth is hovering around 10% quarter-to-quarter.

Granted, many companies would love to see even slow Uber growth.

Figures in millions. Uber had year-over-year gross bookings of $14.2 billion in Q4 2018. This does not include user coupons or discounts. Chart: Uber prospectus

One other number to note in the prospectus was Uber’s year-over-year quarterly gross bookings — divided between ridesharing, Uber Eats, and “other bets.” In the last quarter of 2018, Uber made $14.2 billion in gross booking for the past 12 months, including $11.5 billion in ridesharing, $2.6 billion in Uber Eats, and $129 million in other bets. Importantly, the “gross bookings” definition does not include user discounts. When we subtract 2018’s gross bookings of $14.2 billion by its revenue of $11.3 billion, it appears that Uber spent around $2.9 billion on customer incentives, or over 20% of gross bookings, essentially list price.

Revenue over doubled from 2016 to 2017, but has slowed since.

I don’t use Uber, but I would be interested in the experience of users with discounts and promotions. If you ride with Uber, or drive with Uber, what has your experience been? Share your stories in the comments.

Controlling the future of mobility

Uber and Lyft are locked in skirmishes around the world to control the future of mobility. While Uber attempts to expand its Jump bikes and electric scooters, Lyft has monopolies on bike share in Chicago, Minneapolis, and other areas. Jump bikes operate in 19 U.S. cities and two outside the U.S., with scooters in 12 of those markets. Lyft-owned Motivate operates in nine U.S. cities (including New York’s Citi bikes, DC’s Capital Bikeshare, and Minneapolis’ Nice Ride). Lyft-branded scooters operate in 15 U.S. cities across the sun belt, from Los Angeles to DC.

Another competitor is Lime, which operates electric bikes and is most well known for their electric scooters. Lime operates in over 90 U.S. cities and dozens of cities outside the U.S., mostly in Europe.

Bird has also been a competitor in the scooter market, operating in 76 North American cities, and 12 cites outside North America, mostly in Europe.

In Minnesota, Uber and Lyft are competing for market share in six cities across the state: Duluth, Mankato, Minneapolis, Rochester, St. Cloud, and St. Paul. Electric scooter operators only compete in the Twin Cities.

Will the discounts continue, or will one operator take control and become profitable? Billions of dollars in investment is riding on the answer to that question. It will hinge on whether companies like Uber can continue to burn billions of dollars in investor money to tick up their market share quarter by quarter. If the money runs out, we could be set for a competitive marketplace among huge devaluations. If the investment continues, there could well be a ruler of ride share, or at least regional monopolies.

Did you take a ride share trip recently? Have you been hooked to discounts for food delivery services like Doordash and Grubhub? What was your experience with electric scooters? Share your stories and your insights in the comments.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/04/30/as-lyft-and-uber-go-public-the-future-of-mobility-remains-up-for-grabs/feed/1Map Monday: Twin Cities Diversity Trends by Neighborhood, 2000 – 2017https://streets.mn/2019/04/29/map-monday-twin-cities-diversity-trends-by-neighborhood-2000-2017/
https://streets.mn/2019/04/29/map-monday-twin-cities-diversity-trends-by-neighborhood-2000-2017/#commentsMon, 29 Apr 2019 21:42:33 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79818The New York Times published a compelling map-based article this weekend about how white and non-white ratios are changing in neighborhoods around the United States. Their key thesis is that white homebuyers are rapidly changing the demographics and real estate values of neighborhoods that have long been home for people of color in many US cities.

The article is full of data and maps; here is the map showing Minneapolis and Saint Paul:

In America, racial diversity has much more often come to white neighborhoods. Between 1980 and 2000, more than 98 percent of census tracts that grew more diverse did so in that way, as Hispanic, Asian-American and African-American families settled in neighborhoods that were once predominantly white.

But since 2000, according to an analysis of demographic and housing data, the arrival of white residents is now changing nonwhite communities in cities of all sizes, affecting about one in six predominantly African-American census tracts. The pattern, though still modest in scope, is playing out with remarkable consistency across the country — in ways that jolt the mortgage market, the architecture, the value of land itself.

In city after city, a map of racial change shows predominantly minority neighborhoods near downtown growing whiter, while suburban neighborhoods that were once largely white are experiencing an increased share of black, Hispanic and Asian-American residents.

The Twin Cities does have as stark examples of these kinds of neighborhoods as some other cities, like Raleigh, Brooklyn, Atlanta, or Chicago. But here it’s pretty clear that more white people are buying homes in Frogtown Saint Paul and North Side Minneapolis, while more people of color are buying homes in suburbs than they did a generation or two ago. This is important because of the persistent wealth gaps that exist between white households and other groups, which are charted out in the article.

Check out the whole piece on the Times for more info.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/04/29/map-monday-twin-cities-diversity-trends-by-neighborhood-2000-2017/feed/14The Future of West River Parkwayhttps://streets.mn/2019/04/29/the-future-of-west-river-parkway/
https://streets.mn/2019/04/29/the-future-of-west-river-parkway/#commentsMon, 29 Apr 2019 17:00:47 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=78538With the Park Board’s Water Works project’s phase one underway, and improvements being made all along the river, I talked with two local Park Board commissioners, Jono Cowgill and Chris Meyer, about the future of West River Parkway, the parkway system, and Minneapolis parks.

Both share a vision for a parkway system that returns to its roots circa 1883, before cars took over the parkways. When the Park Board was founded that year, the Board hired Horace W. S. Cleveland to design a grand plan for the park system. His plan was later called the “Grand Rounds”, a system of parks connected by parkways. The Ford Model T was 25 years in the future.

Cowgill talked about how the area has become more populated in the last several decades. “As Downtown becomes far more dense than it has been since the [1950s] there’s going to be a need for the parkway to start to be more multi-modal-focused, even more so than it is today, and not as much of a way that some folks use to travel to and from work. […] It’s a beautiful drive, if you’re driving. It is. It’s a beautiful drive, but it can’t be the only use the more people that are down there.”

Improving Pedestrian Access and Safety

Right now, there are very few marked pedestrian crossings along the length of West River Parkway. For many, it can feel like crossing a riverside highway, with cars often going above the posted speed limit.

Commissioners Cowgill and Meyer are working on addressing the issue with improved crossings and measures to slow down traffic.

Crosswalk paint faded and no signal to stop, the pedestrian crossing at Hennepin Ave is dangerous. Photo: Author

For a specific crossing, Meyer gave the example of Hennepin Ave Bridge and West River Parkway, where there is currently no stop sign and only a yellow pedestrian crossing sign. In his experience, cars stopped only about half the time for a pedestrian attempting to cross. “At pedestrian crossings like that, I want to have painted crosswalks at every crossing and also bump-outs,” he said. Other parkways that could see these types of improvements would be Saint Anthony, Theodore Wirth, Stinson, among others.

Cowgill talked about the pedestrian crossing at 4th Ave N. The Park Board is working with the City and has allocated money for improvements to ADA accessibility.

4th Ave N and West River Parkway, adjacent to the North Loop Playground.

Constituents in the area have also been asking for a stop sign at 11th Ave S and West River Parkway. Cowgill thinks, “we can get there, but it begs a larger question about on the river roads and on all the parkways, ‘What can the Park Board invest in — short-term — that will slow traffic and mark it a much more enjoyable place for people who are not driving to be?’”

Water Works

The Water Works project is in the Mezzanine Phase right now, and plans have changed some from the first proposals.

“We are hoping with a couple of the improvement in the first phase of Water Works, including changing some of the connections to the woonerf that is just north of there, and also changing how bikes are able to get down off of [1st St S] to the Stone Arch Bridge … […] It’s going to be safer for everybody. It’s going to be slower for bikers,” said Cowgill.

There will be new ADA ramps off of S 1st St that connect with sidewalk that leads to a pedestrian crossing on West River Parkway. The new plan also includes better connection with S 2nd St through the woonerf that runs between Mill City Quarter and Abiitan. It will be possible to walk and bike to the river while avoiding the dangerous hairpin turn at 5th Ave S and S 1st St where there can be heavy truck traffic at certain hours.

Car-Free Days on Parkways

One major issue I talked about with both commissioners was the possibility of more car-free days on West River Parkway. Right now, the parkway closes to vehicles for race days and the Fourth of July, as well as many other events during the summer. As Meyer said, “we close West River [Parkway] for events on a pretty regular basis.”

In 2004, Bob Fine — then Park Board commissioner for District 6, covering Wards 8, 10, 11, and 13 — had the parkways circling certain lakes car-free on Sundays during the summer. The neighborhood organization volunteered to put up and take down barriers and signage. Meyer was unsure why the practice stopped, but the fact that there is precedent for a weekend car-fee parkway makes it easier to pursue the issue today.

Asked about car-free days on West River Parkway, Cowgill said that he is, “definitely interested in piloting some days, maybe it’s just weekends, where the river parkway from [11th Ave S] the hill and down to 4th [Ave N].”

Cowgill also talked about the two private curb cuts on West River Parkway near the intersection with Portland Ave S. “We have to have that consideration,” he said, but added, “to be fair, we have blocked off that street many times for races, so it’s not something that hasn’t been done before.” Cowgill said that, to his knowledge, there was not vehicle access during those times.

Bikes from Plymouth Ave Bridge

I asked Twitter followers about what issues they saw with the current state of West River Parkway. The first response was about bike access from Northeast, across the Plymouth Ave Bridge, then south on West River Parkway. Currently, it can be very dicey for bikers.

“Kind of a logistical question, but as a westbound cyclist on Plymouth, getting onto parkway’s southbound path is confusing and dangerous. Better integration w/ city’s new bike infra (and future plans) would be great.” — @anton612

3rd Ave Bridge Reconstruction

A second Twitter follower asked about the reconstruction of the 3rd Ave Bridge.

“The [Downtown Minneapolis Neighborhood Association] was told recently that West River Parkway will be down to one lane under the 3rd Avenue Bridge for the entire bridge reconstruction project. I’d like to know if there’s any chance that both lanes can be closed as a pilot for eventually closing the whole thing to cars.” — @JoeySenkyr

Unfortunately for local control, the area of West River Parkway that the bridge shadows is controlled by the state. “The Board was informed about this work being done and about the staging plan for it, but there was no consent that was being asked for because we don’t own the MnDOT right-of-way,” Cowgill said.

3rd Ave S and West River Parkway

Do you have a favorite parkway trail or destination? What would you like to see the future of our parkways become? Share your stories and your opinions in the comments!

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/04/29/the-future-of-west-river-parkway/feed/8The St. Paul Skyway: Public Space or Scrutinized Lobby?https://streets.mn/2019/04/29/the-st-paul-skyway-public-space-or-scrutinized-lobby/
https://streets.mn/2019/04/29/the-st-paul-skyway-public-space-or-scrutinized-lobby/#commentsMon, 29 Apr 2019 14:00:00 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79655[Part of the Saint Paul Field Guide to Public Spaces, put together by a geography class at Macalester College in fall 2018. See introduction here.]

by Luke Sageser

Take a walk through the skyways at noon on a weekday, and you get the impression that you have stumbled into a hybridization of a mall, an apartment complex, and the waiting area of your local bank. The crowds hum as people criss-cross building complexes, making their way to food courts and cafes. This is the idealized skyway system- a street above the street, where the public can go to carry out errands and have lunch with their friends without having to brave the Minnesota winters. Look a little closer, however, and you will find a sort of counter-current running against this conception. The skyway code of conduct is posted on both sides of every causeway, warning against loitering in or obstructing the ‘avenues’ amongst the shops. Signage prohibiting sitting in certain areas abounds. CCTV cameras are ubiquitous, their presence often explicitly noted by placards with bold, capital letters. In just a few hours time, the reason for the existence of these proclamations becomes clear.

By one o’clock the crowds start to thin as the lunch hour comes to an end. By 3pm, shops start to close. As the last few stragglers depart from their post-work fitness classes and the halls become silent and empty, the question on everyone’s mind is “What, exactly, are you doing here?”

It’s a reasonable question. Most people who are familiar with St. Paul’s skyway system are aware that its principle raison d’etre is to function as an attractive amenity for downtown office workers on their lunch breaks, particularly during the colder months of the year. Outside of those hours, when all the shops are closed, the general perception is that the skyways are only populated by the homeless and other societal outcasts. These are the elements that the signs and security cameras seek to control. Private security guards and St. Paul police alike work to move along those who do not appear to belong; backpacks and shabby clothes are a surefire way to ignite their suspicions. Hours of operation have been limited to better control access to the space. The result is a space that feels less like a second street, and more like a scrutinized waiting room. The population is permitted to travel to and fro in order to patronize private establishments, but the moment one stops and lingers the clock starts to tick. A person visiting the skyway after hours without a clear purpose is automatically seen as suspect. Because there isn’t really anything to do in the skyway outside of its relatively short business hours, the attitude seems to be that existing in the skyway after hours just isn’t allowed.

This constant suspicion can lead to violent overreactions, like in the St. Paul taser suit. For the unaware, the suit concerns Chris Lollie, a black man who sat in a chair in the skyway to wait for his children at their daycare. He was asked to leave by a private security officer who said he was not permitted to sit in the lounge area, despite it not being labeled as employee or customer only seating. When he refused, the police were called, who tazed Lollie repeatedly despite his cooperation. Later, all charges against Lollie were dismissed and Lollie sued the city. The main point of contention in the suit is whether or not the lounge area Lollie was sitting in was public or private space. This kind of ambiguity over one’s right to occupy the skyway all but ensures that it remains an unattractive place for the public to be apart from during the workday lunch hour.

Some of you may read this and think “So what?” For many, the skyway functioning primarily as a workplace amenity and being strictly controlled outside of business hours might seem ideal, if not essential to ensure that the space remains safe and clean. Many feel the skyway is already unsafe and welcome more thorough patrols of police and other security measures, which are seen by most I spoke to as inadequate to protect the people who live in apartments connected to the skyways. I spoke with one group of apartment residents who felt the need to create an informal apartment safety patrol armed with pool cues, tasers, and in one case, even a sword after being attacked outside of their complex. They regularly waited hours for police to respond when large groups of non-residents congregated around entrances, making residents feel unsafe. Under circumstances such as these, it’s easy to see why people might think that the intense amount of scrutiny placed on after-hours visitors is a good thing. However, it is my view that this approach towards skyway management all but ensures that the skyway will spiral deeper into this dynamic of bustling during the lunch hour and dangerous at all other times.

Let us address the fact that the current measures of security do not actually guarantee safety. If a person is assaulted in the skyways, the only purpose that signs and CCTV cameras will serve is aiding in the prosecution of their attacker after damage has already been done. Private security officers, whose role is largely hands-off, are only marginally more helpful. If someone is attacked in their presence, outside of calling 911 there is little they can do. Your only options in such a scenario are to wait for police to arrive or defend yourself, like the apartment residents I spoke to chose to do. This example illustrates why this excessive presence of security-focused features is seen as undesirable in a space and corresponds to a one in our model. These features don’t make people feel safe, they nurture a feeling of anxiety and out-of-placeness that discourages use.

Few will seriously argue that the only options to ensure safety after hours in the skyway is to flood it with police in every causeway or condone regular patrols by civilian vigilantes. In fact, the skyways serve as their own example of why such actions are unnecessary to ensure safety if you simply observe them during the lunch hour. The skyway doesn’t feel safe from noon to one on weekdays because it’s swarming with cops or because every lunch-goer is carrying a weapon; it feels safe because it’s well-populated with large numbers of fellow citizens lending a sense of social protection to the entire space. If one were to be attacked during the lunch hour, there’s a strong level of confidence that someone else around would immediately take note and intervene. My rating of the skyway for animation is a reflection of this. The animation of the space during the lunch hour garners a five, but its emptiness after hours reduces it to a three.

We have to address the fact that in a city where temperatures regularly drop well below zero, the skyways are always going to be an attractive place to be for St. Paul’s homeless or home-insecure populations. In this way, the skyway system has taken what should be an inherent advantage it has as a space over the city streets and turned it into a liability. Early closing hours, lack of use, and hostile levels of control and scrutiny all work together to make the skyways an entirely unpleasant place to be for everyone but the desperate. If we want the skyways to feel as safe as they do during the lunch hour, we should focus on broadly increasing its levels of animation throughout the day rather than constantly working to limit access and use outside of one specific time.

Part of what makes this goal difficult to realize is the skyway’s physical configuration, which I rated two out of five. The skyway bridges connect to privately owned buildings, through which avenues of public space run to connect to the other bridges. The privately owned businesses are required to keep these floors open and allow for public access, but have little to gain financially for doing so. The awkward combination of public and private ownership results in the private elements hiring on the bare minimum of security personnel to just keep people moving along. What you end up with is a space no one wants to take responsibility for, so instead, the hours of operation are cut.

Making the skyway a more consistently animated and vibrant place would be good for its health as a public space. There is also local interest for it, too. The apartment residents I spoke with formed their defense group did so in part because they refused to give up their ability to safely use the space after hours. Members waxed nostalgic about the days where they could walk through the skyways at the dead of night to visit a convenience store, and railed against the police force for responding to their fears about safety after dark with suggestions to just stay inside. This type of use should not be discouraged. It would make the skyways a greater utility for all of St. Paul’s residents and it is also the fundamentally more responsible thing for the city to do in order to ensure a safe environment for its citizens. The extreme over-scrutiny of those within the skyway creates a threatening and dangerous environment for the city’s most marginalized. It led to the unnecessary and brutal assault of Chris Lollie, and it’s foolish to assume this kind of scenario was a one-of-a-kind occurrence. The excessive control placed over the skyways after hours boils its users down to some of St. Paul’s most marginalized groups, such as the homeless or home-insecure, which are disproportionately people of color. This basically ensures that the majority of encounters both private security and city police officers have with skyway users are hostile confrontations with minorities, creating the perfect breeding ground for another assault on an innocent person.

This cultivated environment of bias is not limited to the police; it prompts a more prejudiced view amongst skyway users as well. The vigilante group I’ve spoken of was a reaction to an environment created by the current method of controlling the skyways, and it’s important to note the group’s use of coded language when describing the sorts of people they were watching out for. All the members of the vigilante apartment watch that I spoke with were white, and they described the groups of youth and non-residents that they were concerned about as “ghetto,” as well as suggesting that these suspect parties might be using the bus systems to come to the skyway from places like East St. Paul and Frogtown. We cannot continue to police the skyways in a way that prompts such racialized interactions. If we are serious about designing our public spaces in a way that is democratic and just, our conception of the skyways needs to become more open, and less controlled.

Enjoying the stories

The Basketball Hoop by Tamara Jorell is about growing a community saying, “we bought a basketball hoop on Craig’s List. It was sturdy with adjustable height. People warned us about having a basketball hoop in the neighborhood. “You won’t be able to control who uses it,” one well-meaning friend cautioned. Good, I thought,” for it was intended to draw people and welcome them.

Tile Entries from Pat Thompson notes, “One of the things you get to see when you walk instead of drive is tile entryways to commercial (and sometimes residential) buildings. I’ve been collecting photos of tile for a while, mostly from somewhere other than the Twin Cities.” Like this one (and many more photos):

La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Getting around

What if Hennepin Ave Had a Roundabout? is a thought experiment (illustrated!) by Conrad Zbikowski sparked by his experience “waiting for the number 6 bus at Hennepin Ave and S 1st St, near where I live, and I was watching the vehicle traffic. I noticed that the semaphore intersection was not very efficient at handling left turn vehicles. There was a part of the cycle when left turns in both directions on Hennepin Ave would go, and I saw a trickle of 2-5 cars make their turns as traffic backed up in all directions. There also was the flashing yellow arrow left turn, which worked like a regular green light, having left turners yield to oncoming traffic. The time was just before 5:00 PM, so there was heavy traffic in both directions.” The draws up a shared space roundabout (think Poynton Regenerated).

We Don’t Need Police to Keep Our Transit System Safe writes Henry Pan and focusing on law enforcement brings difficulties with racism and power differentials. Other models exist which focus on assistance, rather than enforcement, “San Francisco Muni is the only transit agency I know of in the nation that has a program to keep everyone safe, regardless of who they are. The Transit Assistance Program (MTAP) was started in the 1990s in response to unsafe conditions on the bus. Ambassadors are unarmed, trained in conflict resolution techniques and from the communities they serve, according to the San Francisco Examiner.” The program is also a job training program for the MTAP Ambassadors.

Hennepin and 1st roundabout idea

Learning stuff

FAQ: Tax Increment Financing from Janne Flisrand explains some of the details of Tax Increment Financing, a much used, but maybe not so well understood tool for redevelopment. This post looks at the state law, how it works in practice in Minneapolis, and considers how Minneapolis should use TIF going forward “TIF is being considered as one of the key tools to get the benefits from a citywide Inclusionary Zoning policy without bringing much-needed housing production to a standstill. The Inclusionary Zoning policy just adopted by the Council will give developers a choice: build 10% of their units at a level of affordability of 60% of Area Median Income on their own, or get city financing to build 20% of the new units at an even more affordable 50% of AMI. TIF could a seamless rent subsidy for people of limited means to live in newly-built buildings where there are few alternatives.”

Bill Lindeke provides Five Reasons Saint Paul Should Not Spend $3,569,917 to Repave Ayd Mill Road because doing so “runs counter to Saint Paul’s stated transportation, environmental, and equity goals, and represents literally entrenched, out-of-date thinking, a sunk cost sinking farther, good money thrown after bad.” The post has lots of links to the history and controversies of Ayd Mill Road and should be read in detail, but Here’s the quick version of the five reasons: (1) it’s a short term fix; (2) it’s a short term fix which will suck money from long term reconstructions; (3) induced demand means it will not reduce traffic on Snelling, Lexington and Randolph; (4) it won’t help reduce driving as required in the city’s climate action plan; and (5) it’s inequitable. Plus, there are other solutions like closing it for a year.

Ayd Mill Road in 1965

Biking in Saint Paul

Biking to Allianz Field on Game Day – Part 1 by James Kohls tested the Bicycle Routing Plan for reaching Allianz Field by bike from the north. In a block by block review, the assessment is mixed, for example, “The bike racks at St. Anthony are right next to the street at both of these locations, but with heavier traffic heading to the field, University Ave, and the mall; you probably aren’t looking that way. Permanent bike parking signage next to the racks and signs would go a long way towards helping cyclists prepare for when to turn.”

Whole Foods Just Lowered Prices, Just a Little from Conrad Zbikowski follows his recent post about grocery prices and rents in neighborhoods nearby. Although Whole Foods reduced prices slightly, the larger story is about what sort of neighborhoods Whole Foods creates or chooses, “Recently, I shared research on the weak correlation between grocery prices and apartment rents for different store brands like Aldi and Whole Foods. While it is unclear what are the independent and the dependent variables in the relationship, it is clear that living near a Whole Foods is expensive. On average, renting a 1-bedroom apartment near a Whole Foods is $201 more per month, or 20.8% more.”

The Whole Foods media release gloated, “Starting Wednesday, customers will find new lower prices on hundreds of items throughout the store with an emphasis on high quality, peak-of-season produce, including greens, tomatoes, tropical fruits and more.”

Bottom Line: 7.31% Cheaper

Across the 40 staples, the average price cut — including no cuts — was 7.31%. The greatest price cut was for Navel Oranges and Red Onions, which both were cut by 33.56%, from $1.49 to $0.99 per pound. Twenty-eight staples had no price cut, and none had a price increase.

This does not include price cuts on many name-brand items. However, the aisles of the store were tagged with yellow “sale” prices, but not the “new lower price” featured in the produce area. It could very well be that these sale prices will be temporary.

In the end, this was an arbitrary basket of goods, and your own grocery choices will determine whether the price cuts affect you, if you shop at Whole Foods.

Sale prices marked with yellow tags at Whole Foods. Photo: Author

Aldi Stays the Low-Cost Ruler

With Whole Foods supposed new savings, I compared the in-store prices at Whole Foods to the online prices for Aldi on Instacart. There were comparable goods for 22 of the 40 staples in the original basket. Equally weighting those 22 items, on average prices at Aldi were 25.66% lower for the same items. Check out all the data here. Whole Foods did beat Aldi’s price, however, on Navel Oranges, a 3-pound bag of Organic Gala Apples, Organic Baby Carrots, and Red Onions, part of Whole Foods’ strategy to compete in produce.

To Save, Move Near an Aldi

Recently, I shared research on the weak correlation between grocery prices and apartment rents for different store brands like Aldi and Whole Foods. While it is unclear what are the independent and the dependent variables in the relationship, it is clear that living near a Whole Foods is expensive. On average, renting a 1-bedroom apartment near a Whole Foods is $201 more per month, or 20.8% more.

Now it could be argued that the quality or shopping experience is different at Whole Foods versus Aldi. As I mentioned, of the 40 staples I tracked at Whole Foods, only 22 had a comparable product at Aldi, and this was for only generic goods like produce and chicken. Known for its private-label goods, it would be very difficult to find all the name brand products available at a Cub Foods or Whole Foods at an Aldi.

The bigger question is why some people are paying hundreds of dollars per month to buy more expensive food and pay more for rent on apartments that are about the same size. Whatever the answer is, it’s clear that it is preventing some measure of gentrification in those neighborhoods that have an Aldi. In fact, recently, developers asked for a $3.7 million tax subsidy to build market-rate housing less than a mile from an Franklin Ave Aldi and a short walk from the Franklin light rail station. Brian Miller, the executive director of Seward Redesign Inc., was quoted by Miguel Otárola of the Star Tribune in very stark terms. “If the city can’t come forward with TIF, I’m going to tear those buildings down and we’re going to have a contaminated, vacant site for who knows how long,” he said. “The market will not build in that location without assistance from the city.”

Where do you shop for groceries and what do you pay in rent? What do think Amazon’s long-term strategy is for Whole Foods and Prime? Share your recipes and your thoughts in the comments!

This ride turned out to be one of the longest ever for the blog, passing through eight of Saint Paul’s 17 District Councils areas and many more neighborhoods. It was also my second and last ride of 2017. News reports of the impending shuttering of the Hillcrest Golf Club spurred this ride. I wanted to see this historic golf course before it closed for good on October 31, 2017.

Lex-Ham (a.k.a. Union Park)

The sidewalk mural along Concordia Avenue leading to the Aldine Bridge over I-94.

The sidewalk approaching the Aldine pedestrian and bike bridge over I-94 and the surface of bridge became a painters canvas a few weeks before this ride. According to mnartists.org, artist Emily Hoisington and the Union Park District Council worked together with volunteers to create and paint the mural. It’s a nice break from the standard concrete ribbon that is most sidewalks.

The mural continued on the Aldine Bridge deck. On her artist page, Hoisington described the mural design coming from “drawing continuous lines, outlining and connecting shapes and textures visible from the bridge…”1033 Thomas Avenue West.

Frogtown (Thomas-Dale)

Thomas Avenue provided several engaging stops. The brick building at 1033 Thomas, at Oxford, has held at least four unique types of businesses since it was built in 1911. In 2016 Rift Valley Transportation provided vans for student transportation from here. Rift Valley’s website tells a nice story of Ebisso Uka, an Ethiopian immigrant who started the company in 2005 with him as the only driver of its one van. Rift Valley has grown more than 80 vans and 100 drivers.

Universal Signs had the building prior to Rift Valley. In the late 50s, Christensen Electric was headquartered at 1033 Thomas. The best use was what it was originally built for – a creamery.

No, I didn’t stop for a libation, only a photo.

A block to the east at Victoria and Thomas is Billy’s Victorian, a small neighborhood bar, or tavern, as it would be called in my native Milwaukee. “The Vic” has been a bar since the mid-1930s, according to its website, which claims the building at 859 Victoria was a grocery store prior to becoming a public house.

Ryan Park opened in the early to mid 1980s. From 1895 until 1974 this slice of Frogtown land held Benjamin Drew Elementary School.

Neighborhood folks have enjoyed a park at Thomas Avenue and Avon Street since about 1983. The name was changed to Ryan Park to honor Dennis Patrick Ryan, an area businessman who was shot and killed during a robbery of his plumbing store at 811 University Avenue in 1984, according to Historic Saint Paul’sTour Saint Paul Frogtown.

Benjamin Drew Elementary, an eight-room school, was built on the site in 1895 for 320 students. The school was named for the man who was the first Superintendent of Ramsey County Public Schools and the first principal of the St. Paul Public Schools.

Features of the new Benjamin Drew School were proudly trumpeted in the February 16, 1896 St. Paul Globe newspaper.

The impressively styled three story schoolhouse was designed by local architect Clarence H. Johnson. As enrollment grew, it was enlarged twice. Although the City condemned Drew Elementary in 1972, it remained open for two more years.

The City of Saint Paul purchased the property in 1977 planning to build single family homes. However, strong outcry from neighborhood residents forced the City to abandon that plan. The property remained vacant until the 1983 conversion to a park.

Willard’s Liquors at 738 Thomas Avenue.

Another bar, Willard’s Liquors, is a block east of Ryan Park at 738 Thomas (at Grotto Street.) Willard’s is, according to Saint Paul Historical, the second oldest bar in Saint Paul. I was unable to confirm that but I did glean that a William A. Kohls was the owner of a restaurant and bar at 738 Thomas in 1918.

The peace mural on the back of Willard’s Liquors.

Notable is the mural painted on the east side of Willard’s where a dozen people in silhouette are reaching skyward.

Looking closely at the mural, dozens of English and Spanish words symbolic of hopes, dreams and struggles revealed themselves.The final stop on the Thomas Avenue leg of my ride was at the Church of Saint Agnes, which is on the National Historic Register.

The final Thomas Avenue stop was at the historic Church of Saint Agnes, with its 205 foot bell tower that has watched over Frogtown since church construction was completed in 1912. After seeing Saint Agnes up close for the first time, I am convinced this is one of the two or three prettiest churches in Saint Paul.

The bell tower, on the southwest corner of the church building at Thomas and Kent Street, is really the back of the church.The 205 foot tall bell tower in the middle of the photo was far too tall to get in one picture with the lenses I had. (That won’t be a problem next time I visit because I since purchased a wide angle lens.)The four bells in the tower, named John, Saint Agnes, Anthony and Richard, are regularly rung.A four-sided clock sits above the bells. Notice that the two clocks each display a different time. (Neither was correct.)The gold cross at the top of the bell tower shimmered in the midday sun.The sun created a drop shadow on the church name plate.The bell tower and part of the sanctuary structure as seen from Thomas Avenue, just east of the church.The east side of the church.The pride parishioners have in Saint Agnes is reflected in many ways. This garden next to the chapel on the east side of the church is well cared for.A larger garden, also along the east side of the church.

A priest noticed me taking pictures of the exterior. Unexpectedly, he invited into the chapel to get some interior shots between services.

The stunning interior of the Maria Hilf Chapel. The photo was taken from just inside the entrance.The dome of the chapel is 60 feet above the floor. The exquisitely painted mural, according to the St. Agnes website, portrays Christ crowning Agnes of Rome as a saint. Angels and saints of Rome surround St. Agnes.The Maria Hilf chapel as seen from the balcony. The marble alter was also a 1930 addition. The brass chandeliers came from the old State Capitol on Wabasha and Exchange Streets. They were installed in 1915.The detail on the scrolls that decorate Mexican onyx pillars in the chapel.The main entrance to the Church of St. Agnes on LaFond Avenue, just east of Kent Street.Another view of the Lafond entrance.The cornerstone with the 1919 date St. Agnes opened.

Whether history, architecture, photography or religion are your interest, St. Agnes is an essential stop. It is a place I plan to visit again, hopefully coupled with a tour of the landmark, for another blog post.

After more than 50 minutes there, I pedaled east along Thomas Avenue another two blocks before hanging a left to go north on Western Avenue.

This discarded car bumper leaning on the No Trespassing sign struck me as funny.

The North End

Continuing north on Western into the North End, I went east on Jessamine Avenue West for three blocks and paused at Matilda Street.

Behind 1097 Matilda, the garage was a blend of styles and colors.

I continued along Jessamine for about a mile, until it came to a dead end. Between the shine on the silver barrier and the fresh white curb, it was evident that this was a relatively recent change to Jessamine Street.

The barrier preventing motorized vehicles from continuing east. Beyond were remnants of pavement from when the road continued beyond the barrier.

I hopped over the metal barrier to see what lay beyond the trees. About 30 yards farther I came to a bluff, overlooking a bike path on the edge of a meadow.

What could be the remains of the asphalt approach to the Jessamine Street Bridge continues to disintegrate.The the Jessamine Street Bridge carried vehicles over the Trout Brook valley and railroad tracks. This picture, taken from the east side of the valley looking west, is from about 1906. Courtesy Minnesota Historical SocietyThe meadow is part of Trout Brook (previously Trillium) Nature Sanctuary. The paved path is the Trout Brook Regional Trail and the taller reeds behind it hide the Trout Brook. Farther back are railroad tracks that have run through this valley for nearly 120 years.A Twelve-spotted Skimmer dragonfly paused long enough for me to get a picture.Just north of Jessamine I rode up to the Trout Brook Sanctuary Rose Street entrance.

I couldn’t spare the time (or energy) to properly explore Trout Brook Nature Sanctuary on this ride. Touring the Sanctuary is on the list of a future outing. With close to six miles more to go to get to my destination I needed to continue moving.

The Rose Street entrance of Trout Brook Sanctuary takes you past the back of New Harmony Care Center.The New Harmony Care Center along Geranium Street.Houses on Brainerd Avenue were built at an odd angle in relation to the street.

Six-block long Brainerd Avenue is an anomaly because of its 45 degree southwest-northeast angle. Adding to the oddity is that most homes are aligned in a north-south direction rather than at the 45 degree angle of Brainerd Avenue. However, several homes scattered along the six block run were built rotated so the fronts of them are parallel to the street.

When Jacob Hinkel built the Italian Villa-style home in 1872, the dirt road that passed by was called New Canada Road.

The Ann Charlotte and Jacob Hinkel House, built in 1872 at 531 Brainerd, stands out not only among the homes on this street, but also throughout Saint Paul. The 1977 National Historic Register nomination form calls the structure “a rare example of a wealthy man’s country estate” and says it is the only wood-frame house with a cupola in Saint Paul.

Jacob’s time in the home was short – he moved out in 1875, a year after the death of his wife Ann Charlotte. Hinkel lost the home and his business holdings a year later, the result of the Panic of 1873.

The Hinkel house prior to restoration. Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society

Modifications and additions were made to the home by its owners over the next 100-plus years. Then James B. and Karen Sullivan purchased the home in 1970. Six years later, following extensive research and planning, historic restoration began, which resulted in the impressive and historically correct home as it looks today at 531 Brainerd.

The cupola atop the Hinkel House was removed in the 1920s and was reconstructed as part of the Sullivan’s renovation.The leaded glass surrounding the front door.One door to the east is another obviously older than average house. Built in 1885, only 12 years later than the Hinkle’s home, 535 Brainerd is a much simpler style than its Italian Villa neighbor.

Payne-Phalen

My first stop in Payne-Phalen was at the corner of Payne and Ivy Avenues.

The Payne-Phalen neighborhood starts where Brainerd Avenue ends on the east, at Ivy Avenue. Another block east, at Ivy and Payne Avenue, there were several items of interest that brought me to a stop. The Bird’s Nest and its unique sign was the first.

The Birds Nest, at the corner of Ivy and Payne Avenue, specialized in pet birds. Unfortunately, the store’s owner wasn’t in when I visited.

While the building at 1324 Payne still has the creative Birds Nest sign, the store closed in February 2019.

The Alm Building is across Payne from The Birds Nest. The building has suffered through some unfortunate changes since it was completed in 1927.The Alm Building inscription is above a door on the Ivy Avenue side.Back on the east side of Payne is the Payne Ivy Grocery and its mural declaring East Side Pride.A close look at one part of the mural on Payne Ivy Grocery.The small but very well-kept Lake Phalen beach and swimming area is on the east side of the lake.

From Payne to Phalen, Lake that is, and the park’s Beach House and swimming area. It was a great spot to top off my water bottle. This was my first visit to this part of the expansive Phalen Park during swimming season, so I took some time to take it in. The beach itself was small, but very clean and inviting. The designated swimming area comfortably handled the crowd on this Sunday but would likely be stretched to its limits (or beyond) on a 90-plus degree day with high humidity.

The Phalen Beach House looked a little tired, and perhaps lacked some of the polish visitors like today.2017 was the inaugural season of the splash pad, which is at the edge of the beach, and next to the Beach House.

Bouncing back and forth between looking at the lake and beach and taking photos of them, a woman seated nearby and I struck up a conversation. Dorothy Gaul, at Lake Phalen for a wedding, reminisced about coming there when she was 14. “In the late 40s we came to Phalen Beach but it was nothing like it is now. I lived out on Rice Street. I’d take the streetcar Downtown and catch the Phalen streetcar coming out here. It ran on Arcade. And then walk two or three blocks to the beach.”

Dorothy Gaul relaxed on the grass near Lake Phalen.

Dorothy continued, “Of course we had to wear our clothes on the streetcar and then we would change. They had a building – nothing like that,” pointing to the locker rooms. “Then we’d do our swimming and stuff and then we’d have to dry off and then get back in our clothes and go home.”

Phalen Beach was crowded in the summer of 1946. Courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

Visits to Lake Phalen were an occasional thing, according to Dorothy. “It wasn’t a daily thing. We were working in those days. The War was on and we had jobs when we were young.

When I asked Dorothy what she and her friends did when they came to Lake Phalen, she explained, “Just fool around in the water or sit and talk.” So I pushed a bit and asked if she and her friends looked for boys? “Well, there were a few around,” she admitted and chuckled knowingly.

This bath house at Phalen was a 1936 WPA project.

Another Phalen Park memory Dorothy shared with me was her first taste of Dairy Queen. “When Dairy Queen first came out, some fella, he worked at the new Dairy Queen, and he brought a bunch of ice cream and we came out here just to eat the ice cream. There was a patrol that came along and said, ‘You kids aren’t supposed to be in the park after dark.’ And so we left. With the ice cream. It was a real treat then. In those days it had just come out. It was a new thing.”

Curious about the job Dorothy had when she was 14, I asked for details. “I worked at Bethesda Hospital, first in the dishwashing room and then in the dining room. I served the doctors and nurses in the dining room.” Dorothy recalled that she worked at Bethesda for two or three years. She moved on from Bethesda to work at Montgomery Wards. “If you wanted to do things you had to get your own spending money. So that’s what we did, several of us who were about that age. Then later, when I was in high school, I worked at Wards (on University Ave.)” Dorothy’s job at Ward’s is one that was eliminated decades ago. “I worked in the Index Department. It was recording all the people’s sales from five different states. I recorded their purchase, the date and how much they spent.” Dorothy recalled that all the ‘girls’ in the Index Department had to meet quotas. “We had to do so many every 20 minutes. I don’t remember how many it was but you had to keep working. Sometimes you’d work kinda fast so you could have a little break to talk to your friends around you, ‘cause several girls worked there.”

With the start of the wedding imminent, Dorothy excused herself and I got back to riding. Moving southeast along Wheelock Parkway past the south end of Lake Phalen, to East Shore Drive. I turned left and cruised along the east shore of the lake until I came to an arch cut into a 15 foot tall cement and stone wall.

The arch is the entrance to a tunnel under the Bruce Vento Regional Trail, which sits on abandoned Northern Pacific/Burlington Northern Railroad right-of-way.Now in the tunnel and looking east, at Lake Phalen. The beach is far off in the distance.Going east through the tunnel led to McAfee Street and a neighborhood of homes built in the late 1950s.The homes on McAfee Circle, a cul-de-sac, were all built between 1993 and ‘97. In fact, McAfee Circle was but a dirt path until 1992 or ’93, which explains why the houses are that era.The nicely kept rambler at 1450 Arlington Avenue has a swimming pool vibe, from the aqua siding to the ocean blue trim just below the roof and on the steps into the yard.Barn quilts are not rare in farm country but the two displayed at 1633 Arlington is the first and only I’ve seen in Saint Paul.

I continued east on Arlington to its end at Winthrop Street, where I went north for two blocks until it ended at Hoyt Avenue. I didn’t realize that Winthrop Street bordered the western edge of Hillcrest Golf Course.

Hillcrest Golf Course was on the other side of the fence.The spot where Winthrop and Hoyt meet.

Winthrop Street and Hoyt Avenue, both of which end where they intersect, was an interesting spot. First and most noticeably was the large rectangular open area of grass just to the north.

The two boxy object protruding from the grass imparted an official feel to the landmark. This land, officially 2115 Hoyt Avenue, is owned by the Board of Water Commissioners, the water utility for Saint Paul and nearby cities.What does the path into the woods lead to?Following the path for about 10 yards I came upon what appeared to be someone’s personal retreat, which included an empty bird feeder, on the right.Nearby was a weathered bench, crude table made of 2x4s, 4x4s and plywood, and a birdhouse atop a 4×4.The intricate birdhouse was in the best condition of the items in the sanctuary.

Between the empty bird feeder and the rough condition of the bench and table, I wonder if the person who created the refuge had abandoned it.

My exploration continued west on Hoyt to Furness Path and then Furness Parkway which were once part of the streetcar line that went from Saint Paul to Mahtomedi.

After four blocks I came to Larpenteur Avenue, the road that is Saint Paul’s northern border on the East Side. Traveling three blocks east I came to Larpenteur and McKnight Road, the northeast corner of Saint Paul. I’m not sure what I expected but it’s fair to say I was underwhelmed in what I saw.

The northeast corner of Saint Paul at Larpenteur Avenue and McKnight Road. This view is looking northeast at Maplewood.This picture was taken Maplewood, in front of the convenience store pictured in the previous shot. That’s Saint Paul, specifically the now closed Hillcrest Golf Club.

Little did I realize the history of Hillcrest Golf Club, 110 acres of green, rolling hills and mature trees, that had been here since 1921. This part of the East Side was another place in the city I’d never set foot before.

The fence along Larpenteur restricting access to HIllcrest doubled as a billboard for the golf club.

Hillcrest Golf Course was one of a dozen or more Minnesota courses designed by Tom Vardon. Hillcrest was a municipal course from its opening in 1921 until 1945 when it was purchased by a group of Jewish businessmen. who privatized the club. At that time, anti-Semitism was rampant and many private golf clubs banned Jews, so they formed their own club.

The entrance to what was the Hillcrest Golf Club at 2200 Larpenteur Avenue.Even with, or perhaps because of the recent news that Hillcrest was closing in October, it was a great day to play a round.

Sometime during the 1970s, though it’s not clear exactly when, Hillcrest opened to the general public as an “unrestricted” club.

Hillcrest’s expansive clubhouse opened in 2000 and still looked new in 2017.

A well-appointed $2.8 million clubhouse opened in 2000, finally replacing the previous structure that was damaged beyond repair in 1962. The high cost of the clubhouse and the decline in popularity of golf put the Hillcrest Golf Club in a financial hole it was unable to escape.

The practice putting green in front of the Hillcrest clubhouse.

The 2011 sale of Hillcrest to the unlikely St. Paul Local 455 Steamfitters/Pipefitters Union for $4.3 million postponed but couldn’t stop the club’s inevitable closing.

One of the hills of Hillcrest is obvious in this shot of a fairway. It would make a nice spot for some homes or apartments.Houses outside the eastern edge of the golf course.

As of this writing, the 110 acres that were Hillcrest Golf Club are not on the market but are expected to be sometime in 2019. Given the nature of the surrounding neighborhoods, the former golf club’s redevelopment most likely will be primarily residential.

A final note about Hillcrest Golf Club. Although never officially confirmed, multiple media reports from late 2008 claimed that members of Hillcrest (and the predominantly Jewish Oak Ridge Country Club in Hopkins) lost between $100 million and $300 million they invested with Bernie Madoff.

The return trip began with a look at an unlikely stretch of Winthrop Street – the part gravel, part asphalt 1600 block, which has merely two homes on it, is off Larpenteur.

This section of Winthrop Street is one of the few gravel roads in Saint Paul.1635 Winthrop Street.The driveway for this house is on Winthrop, but the address is 2144 East Larpenteur. Must be because the sidewalk leads from the front door to Larpenteur.

The next stop was at a Saint Paul Sewer Utility holding pond on Ivy Avenue, not because it was that interesting, but because it is named.

Roger Puchreiter was a long-time employee of the City’s sewer utility and, according to The Street Where You Live by Don Empson, the designer of this pond in the early 1970s.The Roger Puchreiter Pond is on Ivy, between Kennard and Germain Streets.

Back on Clarence Street, there were two housing complexes to check out. The first was Etna Woods Townhomes, 20 units of affordable housing.

Etna Woods Townhomes, built in 1981, has two, three and four bedroom homes.The Lake Phalen Townhomes were built on three acres of land at Maryland and Clarence in 1999, and replaced five ‘substandard’ apartment buildings.

The Lake Phalen Townhomes’ private roads, driveways and garages at hidden in back.This group of townhomes line Maryland Avenue.

The Lake Phalen Townhomes redevelopment was a cooperative effort by the City of Saint Paul, a neighborhood nonprofit and the builder.

A structure isn’t necessary for a place to have an address as 752 Jessamine Avenue East proves.

752 Jessamine Avenue East was missing its house. Paths led me through and around charming decorative gardens growing from planters, pots, the ground, even tires. Benches and chairs dotted the lot inviting visitors linger within the colorful space. Dubbed Stonegarden on Jessamine, the lot was converted to a small park by volunteers in 2013.

Stonegarden on Jessamine is one of three Payne Phalen Pocket Parks that a group of neighbors started to counter the negative perception of the East Side.Tomato plants climb upward from colorful tires.

Water breaks became more necessary as the mileage and my fatigue grew but Stonegarden proved to be the last stop of the ride worthy of mentioning or photographing. As usual, there is a map of this ride but I’ve added the notes about the stops so you’ll get a better understanding of the trek.

, ]]>https://streets.mn/2019/04/26/st-paul-by-bike-the-northeast-corner/feed/3What if Hennepin Ave Had a Roundabout?https://streets.mn/2019/04/25/what-if-hennepin-ave-had-a-roundabout/
https://streets.mn/2019/04/25/what-if-hennepin-ave-had-a-roundabout/#commentsThu, 25 Apr 2019 19:00:39 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79115I was waiting for the number 6 bus at Hennepin Ave and S 1st St, near where I live, and I was watching the vehicle traffic. I noticed that the semaphore intersection was not very efficient at handling left turn vehicles. There was a part of the cycle when left turns in both directions on Hennepin Ave would go, and I saw a trickle of 2-5 cars make their turns as traffic backed up in all directions. There also was the flashing yellow arrow left turn, which worked like a regular green light, having left turners yield to oncoming traffic. The time was just before 5:00 PM, so there was heavy traffic in both directions.

April 28, 2018 satellite photo with 95-foot radius circle in yellow.

Taking this in, I wondered if it would be possible to build a roundabout at the intersection. After my evening meeting, I opened Google Earth and saw the radius of a circle that one could draw. This happened to be about 95 feet.

With these facts in mind, I started to design in Adobe Illustrator a simple roundabout with a couple of unique features. I was influenced by a 2017 Vox feature on “shared space” traffic intersections in Britain. I decided to draw up a hybrid of a shared space — where there are no traffic lights and cars, bikes, and pedestrians share the road — and a standard FHWA roundabout where pedestrians cross a single right-of-way (street) like a traditional intersection.

This roundabout design makes crossing far safer for pedestrians.

The first thing to note about this design is that it reduces lanes. Left-turn and right-turn lanes are eliminated in return for more space for pedestrians.

The second note is that I designed the roundabout with 10-foot lanes. This is likely narrower than the current lanes, but would reduce vehicle speeds approaching the roundabout. However, there does appear to be space for a 20-foot, or two-lane, roundabout, and that is what is drawn here.

Benefits of a roundabout design

As a daily pedestrian, I appreciate traffic design that reduces the chance I may get run over by a postal semi when I run to grab a cup of coffee. Right now, there are many left turns from S 1st St that can be problematic for pedestrians crossing Hennepin Ave. The left-turn drivers are focused on avoiding a head-on collision and yielding to pedestrians is a secondary priority.

This design eliminates those issues. First, pedestrians only cross up to two lanes of vehicle right-of-way. Second, the traffic has a stop signal, and remaining traffic in the circle is coming from only one direction. In the current setup, pedestrians contend with right turns from drivers facing the other way and aforementioned left turns.

The vehicle signals would be either red arrow (stop, no right turn) or flashing yellow arrow (yield to other traffic).

Another feature of this design are bus lanes on both Hennepin Ave and 1st St. Buses park on 1st St as it is, and creating more space for buses will improve transit on-time performance and reduce bunching. Before writing this, I saw three 2C buses bumper-to-bumper on 4th St SE.

The design also features wide crossing areas, helpful when there are blocking vehicles.

One question that a planner would need to address is how much time should be allocated to the pedestrian portion of the signal. The FHWA recommends designing for a walking speed of 3.5 feet per second. The question is whether to time for crossing one street or going across the diameter. Going across the diameter of the roundabout design would be about 54 seconds. If there was public art or other barriers in the middle, the time could be up to 85 seconds. Of course, there could be a short time of say 30 seconds and pedestrians would have to wait a cycle before completing their trip across both Hennepin Ave and 1st St.

I am not a public works planner or engineer, but I am a pedestrian, a transit rider, and a driver on occasion. It saves lives and improves livability to have streets that don’t work like highways with switches. Putting a roundabout on Hennepin may be radical, but so were a lot of things we take for granted now.

Do you cross streets or speed through them? What do you value as a pedestrian? What public art would you put in the middle of Hennepin? Share your stories and insights in the comments.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/04/25/what-if-hennepin-ave-had-a-roundabout/feed/17Tile Entrieshttps://streets.mn/2019/04/25/tile-entries/
https://streets.mn/2019/04/25/tile-entries/#commentsThu, 25 Apr 2019 17:00:19 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79369One of the things you get to see when you walk instead of drive is tile entryways to commercial (and sometimes residential) buildings. I’ve been collecting photos of tile for a while, mostly from somewhere other than the Twin Cities.

Some of the designs are decorative only, as in the first row of images. Semi-floral, snowflake-like, or just an assemblage of square mosaics, they make a welcome mat that never trips you as you enter.

Usually, though, the name of the business or the building is a focal point. Some, as in the second row, combine major decorative elements and words. The “askaris” remnant is fun because it’s a hexagon pattern made of hexagon tile, plus it has script lettering which is particularly hard to do in tile. The Butte Floral design comes the closest to feeling like an actual carpet and has perhaps the most beautiful border I’ve been lucky to see in the U.S.

The third row contains one of my favorites: the metallic gold tree of Arenz Shoes in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Next to it, the black and white remnant from Butte, Montana, looks like it was one of the nicest scripts I’ve ever seen in tile. And the Daisy letters from Memphis, Tennessee, have the most creative drop-shadow I’ve recorded.

And this is where you realize that tile letters are designed the same way that bitmap letters are (also called pixel fonts), and that guides your understanding as you look at the rest of the samples.

Think about how hard it is to make the Roman alphabet out of one or two rows of squares or hexagons. Contemplate making a curve out of squares. Check out the R in LUTHER and realize that’s why it looks more like an A than an R. The tile-layer should have cut those two tiles along the center of the right edge into triangles and put in triangles of white to represent the curves, right? I wonder why they didn’t. (Or maybe it really does say LUTHEA. Who knows?)

The last three rows of entries, seen in fairly divergent parts of the country, all feature the same approach: centered letters with a light background surrounded by a contrasting border. The differences are in whether serif or sans serif letters were chosen, how many colors are use, and how complex the border design is. Most are probably early 20th century, though I suspect the Angelus tile is more recent and the final image, from the Grand Theatre in Salem, Oregon, is new (though possibly a restoration).

Watch for tile on your next walk around the city. I’ll be on the lookout for more local examples myself.

]]>https://streets.mn/2019/04/25/tile-entries/feed/10FAQ: Tax Increment Financinghttps://streets.mn/2019/04/25/faq-tax-increment-financing/
https://streets.mn/2019/04/25/faq-tax-increment-financing/#commentsThu, 25 Apr 2019 15:00:55 +0000https://streets.mn/?p=79573The recent Seward Commons debate highlighted an important discussion about how the city uses Tax Increment Financing, or TIF. It’s one of the few financial tools cities have and control fully. But it’s not broadly understood. So what is TIF and how does it work? What has Minneapolis used it for in the past?

What the heck IS TIF?

TIF is a financing tool that is sometimes used for real estate and economic development projects.

State law puts strings on how it can be used, and the political process for approving TIF districts ensures another layer of oversight.

TIF can’t be used willy nilly. According to Minnesota State law, projects must pass a “but-for” test to receive TIF. Here’s how Minneapolis describes this limitation:

“One of the basic provisions of this policy is that any development receiving TIF assistance must satisfy the “but-for” test contained in the TIF Act. This test can only be satisfied if the City Council adopts findings that (1) the proposed development would not occur without TIF assistance, and (2) no other significant development is expected on the site, in the reasonably foreseeable future if TIF assistance is not provided.” (Source: the city’s TIF application, which includes more detail. Bonus info here in the city’s TIF policy.)

How do the Financials Work?

In a typical scenario, the TIF funding repays a loan from a bank, and that loan is one of several sources of funding needed to build the project. To memorialize the City’s intention to use tax increment to repay the loan, the City issues a ‘TIF Note’ to the bank.*

For the City, issuing a TIF Note is no risk. The Note is merely a piece of paper that says “Thank you bank for funding part of this project. In return for your funding, as we get increased property taxes from this project, we will pay most/some of it to you.” The City gives up no existing property tax revenues, because the taxes from before the development continue to be collected as before.

After construction is complete, the developer pays real estate taxes to the County just as they would if the project were not in a TIF district. As it did in the past, the County sends the taxes on the pre-improvement value to the City, School District, and other taxing jurisdictions.

The unique thing about TIF districts is that the County sends the taxes generated by the increased value (the increment) to the City. The City forwards these funds to the bank that made the loan to the project. After the TIF Note is paid off (or after 26 years, whichever comes first), the County stops sending increment checks to the City for the project, and the full real estate tax amount is distributed to the various taxing jurisdictions going forward. Thanks to the “but-for” test, that’s money that property owner wouldn’t have paid in without the project.

What is the process to receive TIF?

There is a political process to access TIF, as any new TIF District requires that the City Council specifically authorize the new district. There is a financial cost to request TIF, with a $3,000 application fee and a $15,000 payment at the end of the process. Getting TIF also requires meeting legal and financial criteria. Staff review any TIF before City Council consideration. In recent times, that has required a two-step process: projects first must win preliminary approval, and then return once the final TIF plan is developed.

Here are the questions considered as part of the preliminary approval:

Does the proposed project meet the “but-for” test?

What public purpose would be served?

Is the project consistent with City goals, priorities and applicable plans?

Does the project appear to be financially feasible?

Have significant efforts been made to obtain other financing/funding?

Can the project and/or site qualify for TIF assistance under the TIF Act?

If preliminary approval is granted, staff does much deeper analysis and brings back a proposed TIF district.

How has Minneapolis used TIF in the past?

Going back about 25 years, the City has primarily used TIF for four things:

Supporting the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) and Neighborhood and Community Relations (NCR) department

Funding major downtown projects

Demonstrating the market for development in transitioning neighborhoods

Funding affordable housing

Using TIF for NRP/NCR was possible only because the state Legislature passed special legislation to allow it. That’s such a different use, it doesn’t add much to a conversation about using TIF for development. However, the majority of TIF spending in Minneapolis (in the past 25 years) was allocated to NRP/NCR. You can see just how big that is in this chart that shows the percentage of Minneapolis tax base in TIF districts. The big drop in 2010 was a result of several of the NRP/NCR-supporting TIF districts going away. The rest of these will be decertified in 2020, and there will be another significant drop in the City’s percentage of tax base within TIF districts.

Funding major downtown developments fell out of favor soon after the ‘Block E’ controversy. Prior to ‘Block E,’ several major downtown developments were supported with TIF, with varying levels of success and/or controversy. When people refer to the ‘bad old days’ of TIF or the ‘excesses of the past’, these projects are the ones that sparked ‘buyer’s remorse.’

Development in transitioning neighborhoods, on the other hand, has been the quiet engine behind the success of some of the Minneapolis neighborhoods where development is strongest. I’ll cover this more in an upcoming post, but suffice it to say that Minneapolis would not be the city it is today without a wave of catalytic, TIF-funded developments between 1998-2003.

Mpls tax base in TIF (image credit Scott Shaffer)

Funding affordable housing has been the primary use of TIF in the past decade. Using TIF has been restricted in reaction to the ‘bad old days’ of downtown mega-projects, and this has been the last remaining TIF use in Minneapolis. And even this use has dwindled significantly. In 2012, Minneapolis approved four TIF Districts for affordable housing projects. In the years 2013-2018, Minneapolis approved 6 TIF Districts for affordable housing, averaging only one per year. The need for affordable housing didn’t evaporate in 2013, but the flow of TIF funds for affordable housing slowed to a trickle. Most recently, the newly elected City Council members have signaled a willingness to consider TIF for affordable housing as a significant tool once again, and there are now nine active TIF applications for affordable housing.

What should Minneapolis consider going forward?

TIF is being considered as one of the key tools to get the benefits from a citywide Inclusionary Zoning policy without bringing much-needed housing production to a standstill. The Inclusionary Zoning policy just adopted by the Council will give developers a choice: build 10% of their units at a level of affordability of 60% of Area Median Income on their own, or get city financing to build 20% of the new units at an even more affordable 50% of AMI. TIF could a seamless rent subsidy for people of limited means to live in newly-built buildings where there are few alternatives.

Sometimes, cities can create revenue problems by putting too much of their tax base into TIF districts. Cities should aim to have less than 15% of the tax base in TIF, in general. That’s not an issue in Minneapolis today, especially not given upcoming district decertification – the percentage of our tax base dedicated to TIF districts is already less than 10%, and it will soon be even lower.

It’s time for Minneapolis to have a thoughtful discussion about how we want to invest TIF funds to achieve the goals adopted as part of Minneapolis 2040, to address our affordable housing shortage, to eliminate racial disparities, and to build climate change resilience.

*Sometimes the City finances TIF itself using General Obligation Bonds. This adds risk to the city if a project falls through or if improvements don’t have as much value to as projected. Minneapolis has essentially stopped using GO Bonds for TIF.